Over the past few years I have read a dozen or more books
about criminal organizations, but this is not one of the better ones. The
narrator and author is a previous Rock Machine member and police informant.
Paradis traces his life from his early days as a small time drug dealer, to his
position as a big-time dealer and high ranking, full-patch Rock Machine member
in Quebec.
The Rock
Machine, a motorcycle gang I was slightly familiar with before Nasty Business, was a Canadian club founded
in the 1980’s. They were heavily involved in drug trafficking and are known for
their rivalry with the Hells Angels in Montreal during the biker war in the
late 1990’s. Paradis exited the Rock Machine just before they patched over and
traded in their name to become a Bandidos chapter.
If I had been
reading fiction, it would have been a great plot, but unfortunately it didn't
read so well as an autobiography. The story, at times, doesn’t ring true. For
example, when Paradis became an informant, the police told him they could only
strike a deal with him if he had never killed or ordered a kill. I feel as
though Paradis manipulated the facts surrounding some deaths when he wrote this book to keep himself in the clear. Some of his perspectives on The Rock Machine seem falsified also. His
facts don’t match up with other things I've read.
As well, there
are many sexually vulgar moments which have little place in the plot as a
whole. Paradis appears to have chosen his material more to create a shock
value, than to give insight into the biker world, or his life transformation.
My message
about this book is don’t bother. Nasty
Business is not worth your time.
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