The first of the books I’m going to discuss today is one of the overwhelmingly brilliant ilk. It’s a biker novel published by a small press. This is the blurb: When loyalty to his bike club and his brothers has been Damage’s life and route to wealth, what happens when business becomes serious and brother starts killing brother? The blurb is straight to the point, and so too is the book. This is an edge-of-your-seat crime thriller of the best sort, the sort where the reader actually learns a thing or two, rather than just gorging on the hit of suspense like junk food only to instantly forget it. The second thing to say about Heavy Duty People is that the writing is terrific. I cannot for the life of me understand how this novel has not been picked up by a big press for a massive advance. The plot is fresh, the characterisation is spellbinding and the dénouement is perfect. Heavy Duty People is the story of “Damage,” (A.K.A Martin Robertson) who goes from aimless teenager to an important figure in international outlaw biker club “The Brethren”. Eagle-eyed readers will notice that a Martin Robertson is listed as a co-author, though this book is most definitely a work of fiction. Heavy Duty People considers the roles of deception, misrepresentation and truth in the outlaw biker gang world and I enjoyed this post-modern device of toying with the reader’s notion of “real”. Damage is the show-stealing superstar of the book and he really is a fantastic anti-hero. A rule-breaker, a loyal servant and a pragmatic murderer; he’s positively Shakespearian in his moral complexity. Hilariously, he’s also a financial advisor. As such, there is a great deal of fascinating information about systems for money-laundering, which I’ll certainly keep in mind if I ever fulfil my ambition of becoming a master criminal. To give Damage the last word, here is his response (in the Afterword) to the question of whether he should feel guilty about his role in drug-smuggling: “Just think, next time one of your mates has a snort at a party or your bird drops a tab at a club, someone’s had to source it for you, someone like me. This coke and shit doesn’t smuggle itself in y’know? It takes a bit of good old entrepreneurial risk-taking and effort on somebody’s part so’s you can get off your face. There’s demand, we take the risk and supply, and we get the rewards. Ain’t that how it’s supposed to work? Anyway, big tobacco sells stuff that kills you and if you’ve got a pension I bet you own some of it. If I could only recommend one book this year, it would be Heavy Duty People