I love Derek Raymond! The best description of his work is that it “shrieks of the joy and pain of going too far.”

So since I discovered your channel, I started to read horror and terror novels. Now I am reading again, after 30 years, The Silence of the Lambs” and I think it is an excellent horror book, very well written. So coming here I do not feel apart reading this type of novels, surrounded by pals that love also to read them. Thank you! Your sessions are so interesting. You can be a very good teacher, maybe you are? Good video, more books on my list!

Surprisingly my library has all five, I'll check them out at some point in the near future.

I am loving the Factory novels. What a GREAT FIND THANKS! BTW you should give Ames a go if you haven't. He wrote A Man Named Doll plus you were Never Really Here.

Insightful… I like the bleak stories a lot. Thanks for another video Olly I’ll keep these in mind.

There's a CD of the devastating 'I was Dora Suarez', read by Derek Raymond. It has a soundtrack by British Musician Terry Edwards (you can hear it on his website. )

Fantastic rundown of this series. Gritty, nasty stuff. Nice pull with Goodis. Love his work - especially as much of his writing is based in my home town, albeit decades before I was born. My apologies if you have already talked about the following, though I've not seen them on the blog: Joel Lane's Where Furnaces Burn or David Peace's Red Riding Quartet?

You had me at brutal but compassionate. I once made a list of crime fiction I want to read from a book called The Rough Guide to Crime Fiction, and I Was Dora Suarez was on there, as was The Crust on Its Uppers now you mention that one. I’d better get to these.

Thanks. You're really good at this. Being a English writer, I don't think I'll find him in my standerd haunts. That's good. I read to much dark stuff as it is.

This sounds like a fascinating series, and I think I may have some from a bundle a few years back. If I do, they're going into my 500 books queue for sure. Thanks! I often say that my favorite horror pretty much all has a strong thread of sorrow, almost as if the author were saying, "I'm sorry to have to tell you this, but even though none of these people deserved it, this is what happened to them...." So you said the magic words to hook me just right.

Olly, these books have been on my watch list ever since you reviewed the first one. I'm not going to start until I can score the entire series. I'm definitely not one for crime fiction, but this series does speak to me. Looking forward to reading it - after the challenge. 😊 - 📚MJ

You read my mind! Having finished the first book this week, I just ordered three more (the last one is a bit expensive where I live).

These seem incredibly hard to locate. Hopefully, some publisher will re-issue them soon even just in ebook form.

Great review Olly. I have 'He Died With His Eyes Open' burning a hole on my shelf as we speak. Bought it based on your review of the third book(?) of the series and wanted to start from the beginning. I need to raise it up on my TBR.

Hey Olly, do you have any Roberto Bolaño on your TBR. I'm super serious to hear your thoughts on 2666, especially the part about the crimes. It counts as 5 books btw so you'd get 5 books down with it. Love your videos btw (even if i rarely ever comment)

Good interesting video. Have added the 1st to my TBR

My dear Ollie, thank you again for bringing light to these great books. My amazon wish list keeps filling up, thanks to you. I never heard of this series. Sounds like it is right up my tree. Love hardboiled fiction. I have not read much British hardboiled, so this will be a treat. Merry Christmas to you and yours.

Wow, Raymond's series sounds great. Thanks for discussing it.

I read and enjoyed the first, thank you for introducing me to this series, I’m ordering the rest of them

Loved those books,although I don't remember much about Eyes Open ( "the laughing cavalier", is about all), or Dora Suarez ( of course, the villain's "bicycle" contraption springs to mind... ). I never knew about the last book( Dead Upright ). As a young American, it was a challenge to parse the English colloquialisms. What's a "grass" ? " , and what does " down to grassing " mean? I had no idea what a Lorry was, OR a Humane killer. Burks,punters and the Old Bill, were all additional mysteries to me. Since this was before the Internet, I had to use context clues. The second book was a brilliant cat-and-mouse. Its unimaginable to me to go unarmed, in the face of such an adversary. And the compassion in "how the Dead live" brought me to tears, whilst introducing me to Righteous Fury, in the form of a crashing blow to the Jaw of Mindless cruelty. "so what?" " I'll SHOW you what ! " tearing up just thinking about that....

I'd never heard of this series but I'll definitely have to check it out. Cheers, Olly!

Dang it, they're all out of print!

Heading over to WOB now to see if they have any of these books available. Thanks for the review 👍

I remember when I first found out about hardboiled books and I kept coming across I Was Dora Suarez and how brutal it was but I never got around to ever getting that book.

The way you described the first book reminds me of (8mm) with Nicolas Cage, the only difference being he was a rich private investigator who worked for rich people, the movie also had James Gandolfini and Joaquin Phoenix and it takes place in the United States! The original is a classic...

Thank you so very much, again. Smiles.

Always interested to get perspective on possible reads though I'm not going a lot for grim right now. Anyway, I would tune in just to get a "Cheerio" at the finale. 🤭😊💕

My all-time favorite crime writer, bar none (as well as one of my favorite writers ever). No one, but no one--when it comes to writing crime novels--comes close. Not Raymond Chandler, not James M. Cain, not Ross Macdonald, not James Ellroy . . . you can name any of them, and they pale compared. Want to read something that will fry your brain & will stay with you forever? Read I Was Dora Suarez. Yes, am saying this, having written my share of noir (the Edgar "Doc" Holiday thrillers), plus millions of words on top, the late UK writer Derek Raymond (born Arthur Cook; no, not the "Coma" dude) is the best.

I’ve not heard of these books but they sound amazing. Off to Amazon I go😅

Have you seen Iain Sinclair's and Chris Petit's film 'The Cardinal and the Corpse'? It's now on KZfaq. Iirc, it includes an interview with Robin Cook. It's a great film about book collecting in any case.

Have you presented a review of the Slough House series by Mick Herron?

i like to read to escape the bounds of the earth. this seems to hug the surface.

Haven’t read Raymond but I shall look out for him.

OIlly, please! My wallet can’t take any more!!!

going to give this one a try!

I havent read him but am intrigued. Can they be read independently ? Or best to read in order ? (I dont recall if you mentioned that in the video).

Thanks Olly. I heard about this writer a year or two back and was thinking about checking him this has been a nice reminder/decider. Have you read any Ted Lewis?

I will check out these 5 books 😊

I'll have to read Derek Raymond. Since am fond of the bleak, gritty kind of thrillers. Hope they're better than the Stephen King ones. That's too cheap, it ain't my kind. Though what happens nowadays is also quite awful, in't it ⁉️🙄😳😔🙏

👏👏👏👏👏yesssss

Hey! Thanks for another interesting video. ☺️ I was just wondering if this series had any graphic sexual assault in it? I'd love to read them and am having trouble finding trigger warnings for these. 💜💜💜

Pity you didn't include a link to your KZfaq review of "He Died With His Eyes Open". I went to GoodReads and all I found there was a rating by you for 5 stars. No review.

Have you read the John Connoly books?