Description
Book SynopsisAn axe-wielding psychopath carves young Dora Suarez into pieces and smashes the head of Suarez's friend, an elderly woman. On the same night, in the West End, a firearm blows the top off the head of Felix Roatta, part-owner of the seedy Parallel Club. The unnamed narrator, a sergeant in the Metropolitan Police's Unexplained Deaths division, develops a fixation on the young woman whose murder he investigates. And he discovers that Suarez's death is even more bizarre than suspected: the murderer ate bits of flesh from Suarez's corpse and ejaculated against her thigh. Autopsy results compound the puzzle: Suarez was dying of AIDS, but the pathologist can't tell how the virus was introduced. Then a photo, supplied by a former Parallel hostess, links Suarez to Roatta, and inquiries at the club reveal how vile and inhuman exploitation can become. I Was Dora Suarez is the fourth book in the Factory series
Trade ReviewA sulphurous mixture of ferocious violence and high-flown philosophy. * Prospect *
A mixture of thin-lipped Chandleresque backchat and of idioms more icily subversive. * Observer *
Deadbeat, downbeat but thoroughly believable, and evoked with the scary precision of a scalpel slicing through flesh... extreme, but like nothing else you'll ever read -- Richard Rayner * Los Angeles Times *
I cannot think of another writer so obsessed with the skull beneath the skin. * The Times *
Raymond writes with a stomach-churning exactness about murder, madness and mutilation. * The Times *
If you think of the act of writing as a game of chicken between the author and his talent, then Derek Raymond is one author who achieves his ecstasy by sailing off cliffs. Everything about I Was Dora Suarez shrieks of the joy and pain of going too far. * New York Times *
