Publisher's Weekly Review
Violating one of America's most violent biker clubs' code of silence, Daniel "Snake Dog" Boone spoke to Thompson (Reefer Men) some 30 years after the he left the gang, luridly drawing the curtain back on the notorious Outlaws. Boone says, "To truly understand, you have to be there, you have to live through it, or at least hear it from someone who did. That's why I'm talking." Sandwiched between extended surveys of the gang and its chief rival, the Hells Angels, Thompson chronicles Boone's life, from scuffles with local rivals during his youth as a smalltown biker with the Pagans to his time with the Outlaws, which clashed with the Angels over drugs, vice, and membership. Careful to keep the focus on the illegal activities of Boone and his exported Midland Outlaws in Florida, Thompson recounts efforts taken by the FBI and other federal law enforcement agencies to stem the swelling violence that both gangs inspired. Colorful, and gripping, Thompson's account of Boone and his sinister Outlaw world turns most previous biker chronicles upside down, plunging the reader into a harrowing universe full of cruelty, bloodletting, and deadly consequences. Agent: Caroline Dawnay and Olivia Hunt, United Agents. (Aug.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
Straightforward account of the transnational rise of outlaw motorcycle gangs since the 1980s. British true-crime author Thompson (Reefer Men: The Rise and Fall of a Billionaire Drug Ring, 2007, etc.) relies on interviews with Daniel "Snake Dog" Boone, a British member of the Warwickshire Pagans, a small club eventually absorbed by the Outlaws, one of the "big 3" along with the Banditos and the Hell's Angels (the Outlaws' bitter foes). Boone's personal story forms Thompson's primary narrative, but he also provides a broader journalistic canvas to explain how these clubs evolved from "an innocent throwback to the sixties" to criminal gangs involved in drugs, prostitution and violence. Yet, Boone claims that they were merely a group of jovial motorcycle-riding tough guys until they became involved in a bloody turf war. Simultaneously, the Hell's Angels were steadily increasing their influence in Canada, Australia and elsewhere by persuading smaller clubs to "patch over." Instead, the Pagans and other small English gangs formed a confederation, which they called the Outlaws; Boone disingenuously asserts that they failed to consider that this name alone would guarantee war with the Angels. Years of hostilities in Europe followed, including notorious bombings and shootings, leading the "American Outlaw Association" to offer an alliance. Boone and his associates learned of the benefits reaped by the major gangs, including profits from drug trafficking and from sponsoring purportedly mainstream motorcycle rallies. However, Thompson also documents their descent into vicious criminality, assaulting any rival gang member on sight or arranging drive-by shootings; he even includes a chapter on the bikers' unsavory fondness for sexual assault. Overall, Thompson's approach is more lucid and less fevered than other recent books on this topic, but this only underscores the depraved nature of this otherwise romanticized subculture. Will satisfy true-crime buffs wondering what seamy secrets lie behind the bikers' vows of brotherhood and silence.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
