|
|
Motorcycle Book Store > Motorcycle books beginning with U
|
Under and Alone: The True Story of the Undercover Agent Who Infiltrated America's Most Violent Outlaw Motorcycle Gang |
Author: William Queen
Published: 2007-06-26 |
List price: $15.00
Our price: $10.20
|
Usually ships in 24 hours
As of: July 04th, 2008 10:00:45 AM
|
|
|
Customer comments on this selection.
 talk about courage ...
as with most books i've read, there is always something i see or hear that piques my interest in a topic/subject matter creating a domino effect that leads to obsessive reading. this seems to be the case here: "gimme shelter" led to sonny barger's "hell's angel" which led to the "gangland" television series and then to searching amazon.com for books about outlaw biker clubs, starting with "under and alone".
the first chapter of this book was such an effective teaser that it actually fooled me into believing the book was ghost-written due to the author not surviving his undercover assignment ... it worked, because i couldn't put it down.
the thought of a law enforcement officer having the courage to take such an assignment is one thing ... to follow through with that assignment and actually become a full-patched member of such an organization is simply amazing. even more impressive is the fact that queen does such an excellent job of taking the reader along with him ... a true "fly on the wall" perspective throughout the book.
every chapter contains moments where you feel as if queen wouldn't survive his assignment and you almost breathe a sigh of relief when oftentimes, a random moment of good fortune is all that saves him.
what makes "under and alone" such a good read is that the action never lets up ... it is nothing but a continuous series of battles: the battle to hide his true identity from a group in which every member is a potential murderer, the battle to portray himself as outlaw biker material yet not participate in criminal activity, the battle of being a father to his kids and maintain their safety during/after the assignment, the struggle of actually developing a fraternal relationship with men who he will eventually be sending to prison and the constant battle with the expected ineptitude of the agency responsible for keeping him alive. the best battle of all, however, is the continuous grief queen endures from one particular mongol ... "red dog".
i found myself constantly flipping to the pictures in order to place a face with the name of those mongols he writes about ... even "red dog".
the book left me with a feeling of apprectiation that there are people out there willing to do such dangerous work voluntarily. my only regret is that there is understandably no "where are they now" chapter because i would really like to know how certain mongols personally felt about queen and the success of his undercover work.
 Required reading if interested in motorcycle gangs
Billy Queen is clearly an amazingly smart and tough guy. His tale of inflitrating the Mongrols, moving from 'Hang Around' to 'Prospect' to Treasurere and then Vice President of the local chapter is fascinating and well written. And it will quickly disabuse you of any notion that the the Mongols are OK guys have chosen their own path. While some people may have been OK when they joined, Billy makes clear the gang and its members are all to happy to hurt and kill with little or no reason.
Things the book does really well: Give a feel for day to day life in the gang, outline historical background to the Mongols/Hells Angels flue, give a sense of Billy's double life- knowing his gang friends would kill him at the drop of the hat, and that a large chunk of ATF would rather see everything he'd risked his life for throw away then chance the smallest public embarrassment.
The things I found lacking: Would have to liked to know even more about the gangs structure and the relationship between the head chapter (Mother) and the local chapters, would have liked to see more detailed sketches on even more of the members. Still, these are pretty trivials issues.
If you are interested in motorcycle gangs this book is required reading.
Eye-Opening
We hear many stories of the bad things our law enforcement personnel perpetrate against criminals. Finally a book that shows how courageous some of them are. Bill Queen is one of them, and has rightfully received many accolades. He deserves everyone of them. His sacrifice was immense. I hope he finds the comfort he so deserves.
Takin' out the trash
SA William (Billy) Queen's 2 1/2 years of investigating the Mongols motorcycle club as an undercover ATF agent is pure guts, grit, and courage. Of the many things Billy proved over the course of his investigation perhaps the most important was that such clubs CAN BE infiltrated by dedicated and well supported law enforcement officers.
This is a well-written, fast-paced page turner that once started simply cannot be put down until finished. Queen reveals both the Mongols and other outlaw motorcycle clubs for what they are behind all the media-hype romance...brutes on bikes whose only regard is for their own well-being and whose only respect is for their club patch.
Kudos to Billy Queen for riding the hard trail and bringing down some truly bad guys - his book is a testament to Honor, Loyalty, and Duty of the highest order in the circles of professional law enforcement.
Excellent true -adventure by a Vietnam Vet
I'd bet from reading this book that alot of these Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs have been and are currently being infiltrated at various levels,by undercover police.There seemed to be in the book, alot of paranoia among the Mongol members from government agents in their ranks.I'm glad that there are still police out there that will take such dangerous assignments.It took Queen about a year and a half to build up the Motorcycle Clubs' confidence and he actually rose to the position of Mongol treasurer.
I noticed however how alot of the poverty stricken Mongols rapidly gravitated toward Agent Queen and his "deep pockets" which would have aroused the suspicions of smarter type criminals,(if there even is such a thing)even considering Queen had been in the group for a year and a half.Too much money coming too fast that buys into about any criminal enterprise equals "STING".When something seems to be too good to be true it probably isn't.I admired the way Queen used the Mongols greed against them.Queen became sort of a "daddy" for them and their criminal enterprises and toward the end ,the Mongols seemed like kids asking for their allowance thus adding to their well deserved jail stints.You'd think one of the Mongols might have asked,"Wait a minute,Queen(or St. John) sells high-tech electronic equipment for an Avionics firm,maybe he's using some of it on us"But also remember how many stores are robbed right in front of a security camera with full lighting and witnesses.Greed is almost never rational though?
Most of the victims of these Motorcycle gangs are other motorcyclists(loner types) too often non-affiliated with a gang and therefore wide open to be a victim of groups like the Mongols.It greatly deflated my image of the fearless tattoed lone wolf cyclist, who challenges the world and its ideals.Probably from reading this book his"mission" ends rapidly as he is found dead or unconscious along the road and his bike confiscated by gangs like the Mongols.His hot-Harley honey also confiscated by the Mongols.Everyone talks about doing something about "bullies" but few to none ever do anything about them.Queen definitely did and it's good to know there are people like him out there.
|
Similar Listings
|
|
Our Motorcycle book picks:
|
|
Search the Motorcycle Products Store
LCS Amazon Store 2.5 © 2008
|
|
