GUARDIAN ANGELS: A giant rock group tour is being planned, with top names from the United States, and security is the big problem with the promoters. How can they avoid the appalling violence from rioting fans, without jeopardising the lives of the security guards themselves? The Hell's Angels seem the answer, and Gerry Vinson's Last Heroes emerge from their Welsh retreat to do the honours. But the American groups have organised their own protection - an American chapter. The inevitable rivalry and ill-feeling is only averted when they are faced with a new threat - the satined and scented Skulls.
ANGELS ON MY MIND: The Hell's Angels are outsiders. They make up their own rules. They delight in perverting the "normal" way of life and turn their backs on the rest of society. But for those who get in their way, and won't let them have what they want, they have only one answer ? violence. And even when the do-gooders step in to save lost souls, they find what goes on inside an Angel's head is too much. Stranger than fiction, in fact. What started out as a crusade ends in death. The Angels swear revenge on those who betray them.
Autorentext
Mick Norman wrote a quartet of UK-based Hell Angel's books in the 1970s. Angels from Hell, Angel Challenge, Guardian Angels and Angels on my Mind.
The books were Norman's or, more precisely, Laurence James' vision of the then future. Laurence was an editor at New English Library at a time when they were publishing biker pulp-fiction by the likes of Peter Cave and Alex R. Stuart. He was Richard Allen's editor and dealt with some of the Jim Moffat skinhead books. On the back of these, Laurence decided to change tack ? and sent in the manuscript of Angels from Hell anonymously to another editor. He stated that he only thought of it as just the one book but NEL took up the option and Laurence wrote three more.
Often call "trash fiction", the Angel quartet has gained a certain cult fiction following. It was their combination of sex and violence, the theme of "us" against "them" which made these books a success at the time.
This fiction is not for the politically correct and is very much a product of its time. It is gritty and realistically brutal. The sex, drugs, violence and music references remain intact because that was the then creed of the UK-based Angels.
These novels are pure nostalgia, harking back to a time that many bikers of a certain age would identify with. Triumph, Norton, Harley-Davidson and Velocettes grace the pages.