Born Robert William Arthur Cook, the son of an English textile magnate, Robert — or Robin, as he came to be known — was quick to spit out his silver spoon. A troublemaker throughout his youth, his rakish ways followed him to college. It was at Eton that Cook refined followed him to college. It was at Eton that Cook refined his disdain for entitlement and the arrogance of the wealthy, dubbing the school “an assembly line for rulers and bastards.” He happily traded in his Eton tie and all its perks for some beer money and a ever-present blue beret.

Cook spent most of the 1950s in Paris living in the now infamous “Beat Hotel” where he wrote and drank alongside such beatnik visionaries as Allen Ginsberg, alongside such beatnik visionaries as Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs, Gregory Corso and Harold Norse. The 42-room hotel was designated “class 13,” which meant it met the most basic rules concerning shelter in Paris: it had a roof and walls. Unfortunately, it had not much else. Located at 9 Rue Gît-le-Cœurin, the squalid building in fact had no name. The “Beat Hotel” name was coined by Gregory Corso.was coined by Gregory Corso.

Reginald “Reggie” Kray and twin brother Ronald “Ronnie” Kray were London’s most notorious gangsters during the 50’s and 60’s. Recently returned from Paris, Cook fell in with an associate of the Kray brothers, Charlie da Silva, who talked young Robin into fronting a property company for him. The psychotic Krays and their dealings became the mine from which Cook would later draw his writings. In one such Kray-related epilater draw his writings. In one such Kray-related epi-sode, Cook was arrested and interrogated for the theft of a Rembrandt painting involved in an insurance scam. It was after this incident that Cook retired from crime and picked up the pen instead.

For a short while Cook enjoyed literary success, at least with critics. But as is sometimes the case, critical suc-cess does not necessarily equate to book sales and so it was with Robin Cook. Cook summed up his early writing career like this: “I’ve watched people like Kingsley Amis, struggling to get on the up escalator, while I had the down escalator all to myself.”

In the back street of St. Ann’s Court in SoHo, Cook tried his hand at pornography to make a living, but was less than successful. Augmenting this income with another novel here and there, he eventually became so disillusioned with the grubby life he was living that he disillusioned with the grubby life he was living that he fled to France. As a manual laborer in various vineyards and farms, Cook became rooted in a sense of right and wrong, questioning the way he had lived his life formerly. While in Spain – still a fascist country at the time — Cook was jailed for denouncing Franco in a bar.

During Cook’s hiatus from writing, another author, an American writer of medical thrillers also named Robin Cook, ascended bestseller lists worldwide. One can only imagine the chagrin Cook felt upon learning that his name had been replaced. With his new social convictions in place, Cook returned to a London racked convictions in place, Cook returned to a London racked by Margaret Thatcher’s austerity laws and classism. Donning the name of Derek Raymond, the man formerly known as Robin Cook took aim at a city festering with inequality, hypocrisy, and brutality.

At the arrival of 1990s the Factory Series was selling incredibly well in France, where several of the books had been turned into movies. In the UK the books were just going out of print, and in the US they had just been forgotten altogether. With the Serpent’s Tail release of Raymond’s writings, including the Factory Series, came renewed and this time lasting interest in his writing in the UK. Soon after, the recording of a spoken word the UK. Soon after, the recording of a spoken word collaboration with the British band Gallon Drunk brought Derek Raymond new, young readers and fans, one of them being protégé Cathi Unsworth.

Despite his return to print and subsequent respect from a generation of writers he influenced, Derek Raymond was yet neglected in the US, the land where noir was born. That is until now. Welcome back to the land of inequality, Detective Sergeant.