DEVIL'S HOME ON LEAVE

Rating:
Summary: Dark crime of the highest order, a British James Ellroy.
Review: The Devil's Home on Leave is the first of Derek Raymond's Factory novels. The series is a grim view of London's criminal underground and a policeman who understands it completely. The sergeant works for a small division of the force that deals with whatever the Serious Crime Unit deems to be too low-profile: vagrants, prostitutes - the forlorn and the forgotten. The sergeant investigates the revolting murder of a man with only his memoirs as a guide, the killer having reduced the corpse to unidentifiable fragments.

This is a common theme in the Factory novels, a victim who is ignored by the system but who is brought to life by either a diary, recorded thoughts or the memories of close friends. The sergeant is never named but his depth of feeling for the victim is almost painful to read. The novels are never really whodunnits, more the gradual gathering of evidence and uncovering of the chain of events. These books gripped me, they have a savage beauty. Their tone is depressing but there are some lighter moments when the sergeant takes time to deconstruct the masks that many of his witnesses wear or give his thoughts on the nature of policework. Buy it.