Robert William Arthur Cook (12 June 1931 – 30 July 1994), better known since the 1980s by his pen name Derek Raymond, was an English crime writer, credited with being a founder of British noir.
The eldest son of a textile magnate, Cook spent his early years at the family's London house, off Baker Street, tormenting a series of nannies.
In 1937, in anticipation of the Second World War, the family retreated to the countryside, to a house near... meer