PUBLISHER’S NOTE:
SPECIAL OCCASION; NEW BOOK
BY PETER EDWARDS RELEASED.
I insist on being unrepentant in praising Peter Edwards new
book which just happens to be called “Unrepentant: The strange and (sometimes) terrible life of Lorne Campbell, Satan's choice and Hell's Angels biker." It's well worth the praise, and more!
Peter is my Toronto Star colleague of many years who worked
very diligently with me to help expose the terrible miscarriages of justice
caused by former pathologist Charles Smith.
Through Peter, Lorne Campbell brings us in to the heart of his outlaw biker's world. It is at
times a difficult journey to take. I remember several occasions reading the
book outside the house – and then being anxious to escape from the violence, senselessness, ugliness
and pain of this world by returning
to my peaceful home, which felt, thank goodness like another planet.
But don’t get me wrong. This book is also filled with loyalty,
humour and pathos and an abundance of intriguing stories about biker life, told
by Peter, a master story teller – who also happens to be a very fine journalist. Here are some examples:
Loyalty: (The ultimate test!) The
account of how Campbell, took the witness stand and confessed to a murder he had not been implicated in, in order
to free eight of his “brothers” who had been charged with the crime – even
though he might be paid back for his loyalty by spending the rest of his life
in prison. Of special interest to the readers of this blog is Peter's account of
how, during the course of the
trial, one of the eight accused men asked for the trial to be interrupted so
he could be taken to hospital and have a bullet removed through surgery, in a
bid to show that he was a victim – and not the shooter. (You will have to read the book to
discover whether this ploy worked or not!)
Humour (sort of!): Peter’s account of a hockey game behind
the walls of Canada’s super-Max Milhaven Penitentiary. The game went reasonable well until one
of the co-inmate spectators made the mistake of screaming out, “Kill the sonofabitch.” As Peter writes: “It may surprise habitués of
mainstream hockey games, but there were unwritten rules about what you just
didn’t do at a Milhaven hockey game, where a large percentage of the players
were convicted killers. Hollering
“kill the sonofa bitch” was one of those things. “You don’t scream that to
a rink full of lifers, of
killers,” Campbell says. You don’t yell ‘kill ‘em’ in Milhaven.”
Pathos: (of sorts!): “Campbell didn’t hold a grudge
against Jimmy Brockman for
shooting him. At the time he put the bullet in Campbell, Jimmy was stoned and
figured Campbell was trying to rip off his stash of speed. In their world that
was a reasonable fear. “In his mind, I’m ripping him off. I liked Jimmy. I
would have done the same thing. Only I would have pulled the trigger again. I
wouldn’t have thrown away the gun.”
All that said, “Unrepentant,” is a fine,
interesting, entertaining, enlightening and occasionally utterly disgusting read
about a complex, articulate man, who you would never want to cross. Never!
“Unrepentant” is published by Random House Canada.
More information at:
http://www.amazon.ca/Unrepentant-Strange-sometimes-Terrible-Campbell/dp/0307362566
See also: the publisher's home page for the book:
www.unrepentantbiker.com
Harold Levy: Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog.
