When I crashed and abandoned my motorbike in the Australian Outback, it was my fourth or fifth accident. Yet the lure of riding, from rackety 125s to the 650cc that had just died overtaking a road-train, was as strong as it ever had been since I first got on a motorbike in a car park aged seventeen. Working as a courier I expected spills. But not to enjoy them. I remember the death-defying buzz after tumbling along a by-pass and standing up to brush myself off. Mixing this thrill of danger with the outlaw camaraderie of couriers, where tales of jumped lights and police pursuits are revered, I may have experienced a tiny part of what it might be like to ride with a motorbike gang, something the author of No Angel did for nearly two years.
If undercover cops were eligible for academy awards, then Jay Dobyns would be my nomination for best actor. We may applaud film stars for convincing us on the silver screen, but 'Bird', as Dobyns would be named for the two years investigating the Arizona Hells Angels, could not fluff his lines and retake. If he did, he would most likely be killed.
No Angel rides through the trailer parks and meth dens of broken America. It offers not only a handlebar view of gunning a Harley Davidson with an outlaw bike gang, but also a brilliant insight into the identity crisis of a cop balancing family life in the suburbs while bonding with the drunken and violent men he would later try and jail. As the case against the Hells Angels deepens, the author's sense of self blurs. Addicted to stimulants, and the adrenaline-rushing fear of being found out, he is cut off from his home life. Bike rallies and gun dealing become more of a reality than a weekend with his wife and kids.
What would Dobyns allow his alter-ego to do in order for his department to gain the convictions they have so desperately sacrificed themselves for? If this were fiction, you might not believe the risks he takes, the nature of his obsession. But this is very real indeed.
Nicholas Hogg is the author of Show Me The Sky.
No Angel will be published in May 2009.
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