Charlie and the Angels: The Outlaws, the Hells Angels and the Sixty Years War - Hardcover

Caine, Alex

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0307358941 ISBN 13: 9780307358943

Publisher: Random House Canada, 2012

Synopsis

The Outlaws Motorcycle Club's story is told here for the first time, by criminal underworld author and former infiltrator Alex Caine. They are the original biker gang, and their sixty years of war with the Hells Angels is the stuff of legend.

Right down to their signature logo (a skull known as "Charlie"), the McCook Outlaws Motorcycle Club, formed in 1935, defined the look and sensibility of the twentieth-century biker. In the 1950s, a rising gang of toughs in California threatened to steal their thunder. But, recognizing an opportunity for expansion, the Outlaws reached out. The nascent Hells Angels sent them home to Chicago, beaten, humiliated and forever bent on the Angels' destruction.

Sixty years and thousands of maimed and murdered later, the Hells Angels are a dominant criminal empire. The Outlaws, loosely allied with the number-two club in the biker universe, the Bandidos, sit contentedly as the number-three power, though they rule in places like the UK, the Great Lakes, Florida and the US Midwest. Less concerned with making money than the Angels, they continue to define the vicious biker character like few of their peers.

Working undercover, Alex Caine witnessed the buffering of the big clubs' US turfs in a Bandidos-mediated truce between the Outlaws and Angels in the 1980s. But like every deal between bikers, that one soured, and a storm of unimaginable violence and scope is brewing. The alliance is expanding and determined to unseat the Angels for once and for all.

About this title

About the Author:

ALEX CAINE’s memoir, Befriend and Betray, was a #1 national bestseller in Canada. He is also the author of The Fat Mexican: The Bloody Rise of the Bandidos Motorcycle Club. Both books were finalists for the Crime Writers of Canada’s Arthur Ellis Award for Best Non-Fiction and have been published in several countries and languages. He now acts as an adviser on biker investigations, and speaks frequently at police conferences.

Review:

NATIONAL BESTSELLER
 
“It is rare for someone to infiltrate this mysterious, often romanticized world, and live to tell about it. That alone makes the book well worth reading.”
—Canadian Lawyer
 
“Charlie and the Angels is an interesting and detailed look into the history of these two gangs, and a rivalry that dates back over 60 years.... [Caine] offers a comprehensive overview of the violent biker brotherhood subculture.”
—Winnipeg Free Press

About this edition

• Publisher: Random House Canada
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 0307358941
• ISBN 13: 9780307358943
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 272