100 books like Fallen Angel

Nothing beats an author willing to immerse himself into an outlaw world to get their perspective – until that world starts to literally beat the writer. Hunter Thompson’s first book is more of a journalistic work, examining the infamous biker gang from the inside than what would follow (Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas and so on.) He is very much part of the action at riotous parties, on bar stools, and alongside at motorcycle runs, but his first-person narration is an effective tool for revealing the Hell's Angels as independent people and as a fraternal organization. The writer and his subjects willingly project their images of unrepentant criminals. But when Thompson is on the receiving end of a gang beatdown, it’s a reminder that the line between outlaw and citizen can be hazy, and you might not know you’ve crossed it until blood’s being spilled.      

I found this telling of the Shedden massacre of eight Bandidos at the hands of a mix of club mates and deranged wannabes, including a one-time failed police officer who was looking to reinvent himself as an outlaw biker player, very affecting, reading as it does like an almost Shakespearian real-life tragedy.

Edwards, along with Jerry Langton one of the key chroniclers of the Canadian outlaw biker scene, tells the stories of the dead men, introducing a group ranging from established bikers to probationers, loners to family men, and petty criminals to ordinary working stiffs; laying out how they all came to be facing their death one after another in a Nazi fantasist’s barn.

One of my reasons for starting to write about the UK outlaw biker scene in particular was that no one else seemed to be treating it seriously. That all changed when Tony Thompson, a highly respected journalist with a track record of highly readable and successful books on the UK gangland and crime scene produced this.

This book is the biography of ex-Outlaws MC member Daniel "Snake Dog" Boone, but through it, Thompson tells the wider story of the development of the UK outlaw biker scene since the eighties and how it has been affected by international biker politics, up to and including the 2007 murder of Gerry Tobin. Thoroughly recommended and essential reading for anyone interested in the club scene in England. I’ve said that if this had come out before my first biker book, the chances are I’d have never finished writing it.

The books I’m recommending have all been key sources of insight in differing ways into the realities of the club worlds and cultures. This is a definite recommendation as one of the best “informed outsider’s” overviews I found.

It’s something of a rarity in the outlaw book world being a book by what seems to be a very well-informed and connected outsider (although I understand there has also been criticism of the content) which strives and manages to present a view that seems both balanced and nuanced. I like it because it doesn’t whitewash, nor does it condemn, instead it tries to show and explain.

Australia has a strong bikie culture that draws on a long tradition of ‘mateship’ and this book gives a glimpse behind the scenes of the rules and rituals of club membership, as well as the history of clubs in Australia.

Dive down San Francisco’s counterculture rabbit hole with Joel Selvin, the Bay Area’s best rock journalist. Altamont chronicles the rise and fall of the infamous Rolling Stones concert at the Altamont raceway in the Bay Area’s eastern hills, which notoriously end with the murder of concertgoer Meredith Hunter by the Hells Angels. Selvin’s unvarnished coverage goes deep into the world of the 1960s rock scene where innocence and ugliness, odd allegiances, and creative force make a unique cultural moment in the Bay Area. You’ll also get to know some big names in rock, and witness the counterculture as it gets distorted and its innocence lost, as the money gets better and the drugs stronger. You’ll never listen to the Stones or the Dead the same way again.

The Canadian Connection is an expose of the mafia in Canada and its implications for international crime operations. It was first published in French in the mid-1970s and immediately went on to become a national bestseller. There was a time in Quebec when you couldn’t turn the page of a newspaper without seeing an ad with an order form urging you to buy this “Shocking! Chilling!” book that revealed “Names! Dates! Locations!” Jean-Pierre Charbonneau is today considered one of the godfathers of Quebec writings on organized crime. The Canadian Connection is largely forgotten in English-speaking Canada and widely unknown to the rest of the world. It is essential reading for anyone with an interest in the history of the mafia, and connections to the New York Five Families of organized crime. 

Vietnam vet William Queen was capping a 20-year law enforcement career in 1998 when the ATF agent wangled an invitation to join the San Fernando Valley chapter of the notorious Mongols motorcycle club under the code name Billy St. John. He spent the next 28 months rising undercover to the rank of treasurer and vice president, allowing him to provide documents for the arrest and indictment of 54 members by 700 officers in four different states. Queen’s 2005 bestselling true crime memoir of his Mongols days ranges from bone-chilling to side-splitting for terror and laughs. Although Mel Gibson reportedly bought the screen rights, a movie has yet to appear.

I have never ugly cried from a book as hard as I did for Sinner’s Creed. Deep down, I knew what would happen. I knew [sorta] how it would end, but held out hope for a different outcome. Dirk and Saylor’s love is pure despite the darkness around them. Dirk is devoted to Saylor and she shares that same level of commitment. This book tore me apart in the most perfect way.

Painter screwed up. He made the wrong choice and he knew it. Melanie swore off bikers to protect her daughter. It didn’t matter that they still loved each other. They couldn’t be together. Until Melanie makes the wrong choice and violates their rules.

This second chance romance had hold of my emotions from page one. I went on a roller coaster with Painter and Melanie.

I highly recommend the Torpedo Ink series by Christine Feehan for its exceptional portrayal of characters who face trauma head-on.

Savage Road is the book in the series that I love the most. It shows that even someone so far gone from their past can have redemption. It was hard for me to put these books down. I needed to know how they would overcome the trials that trauma introduced into their relationships. Would they be able to persevere?

It made me hopeful that I would find someone despite my PTSD.