Dead Man Running
This is a book about a man who no longer exists. Its subject, Australian biker-gang member and police informant Stevan Utah, was given a new identity in 2007. Good thing, too; otherwise, his former gang comrades would probably hunt him down. Written by an Australian journalist (Coulthart) and former police officer (McNab), the book lays bare the operations of a particularly nasty gang, the Bandidos, and chronicles Utah’s life as one of the gang’s key members. A willing participant in many of the gang’s operations, including murder, Utah became a police informant, knowing he was putting his life at risk, but when (according to him) the police cut him adrift due to their own incompetence, he knew he had to go public, even if it meant leaving his entire life behind. This is exactly the kind of story Martin Scorsese should make into a movie: a nail-bitingly suspenseful, highly detailed, very frightening insider account of a criminal organization. --David Pitt