Satan’s Choice

My life as a hard core biker with Satan’s Choice and Hells Angels

Lorne Campbell & Peter Edwards

Lorne Campbell stood up in court and admitted shooting dead a member of a rival club.

He wasn’t believed and instead the judge sentenced his club brothers for the crime giving rise to the case of the Port Hope Eight and the miscarriage of justice covered in Mick Lowe’s Conspiracy of Brothers (of which more later).

Satan’s Choice is well written (with Peter Edwards involved it was always going to be), unapologetic, and gives a view of the development of the Canadian outlaw biker scene from the view of one of the strongly independent minded clubs until their eventual patch over into the Hells Angels.

An impressive 'members eye' view of club life and the loyalties it entails.

Hell’s Angel

The life and times of Sonny Barger and The Hells Angels Motorcycle Club

Ralph ‘Sonny’ Barger with Keith and Kent Zimmerman

First up in a seies of posts on key books on the biker scene I'd reccomend, and how appropriate to start with Sonny Barger’s autobiography. This was a ground breaking book in many ways given the ‘omerta’ approach that seemed to have been the rule up to that point for current club members.

Hell’s Angel (with the apostrophe) is a very readable collection of snapshots and short descriptive pieces rather than a sustained narrative which build to give a strong impression of both Sonny’s life and how he sees the club having developed over the years.

A good read and a great companion piece to certain other works which we'll come on to soon...