Vagos, Mongols, and Outlaws

December 17, 2012
Falco was facing a minimum sentence of 22 years in prison for conspiracy to distribute and manufacture hundreds of pounds of methamphetamine when the San Bernardino Sheriff’s Department made him an offer he couldn’t refuse—become an undercover informant instead of going to jail. The bulk of this fascinating autobiography describes in detail Falco’s work infiltrating the Vagos Motorcycle Club, an outlaw biker gang considered in 2003 to be the “largest urban terrorist” organization in the U.S. Falco’s main assignment reads like a synopsis of the book: “Get inside, gather intelligence on the gang, identify the club’s leaders, purchase drugs from them, and collect as many illegal firearms as you can.” Falco describes in almost excruciating detail how he rose in the Vagos ranks from a go-fer to a full-fledged member, a three-year descent into a violent world of drug abuse, Neanderthal treatment of women, and constant fighting that left Falco living constantly “in a state of veiled paranoia,” even after the Vagos gang was brought down by the law. It is Falco’s unrelenting depiction of the stupidity and brutality in the Vagos biker world that makes his story powerful. Agent: Jill Marsal, the Marsal Lyon Literary Agency

February 1, 2013
Fevered yet strangely generic account of a lawbreaker who came to enjoy a high-risk occupation: infiltrating outlaw motorcycle gangs. It's hard to know who to root for in this true-crime narrative: duplicitous career criminal Falco (who co-wrote this with attorney Droban, author of two books on these gangs) or the violent, ritual-obsessed gangsters he pursued. Falco was not a natural biker, but a drug dealer who agreed to infiltrate the Vagos after establishing himself as a confidential informant for the DEA following a 2002 plea agreement. "Having lived so long as a criminal, it was hard to remember I was a good guy now," he writes. Falco infiltrated the Vagos easily, but he was sucked into their lifestyle of drug use, abuse of women, criminal schemes and random violence, portrayed in a series of choppy vignettes; he even wound up incarcerated while undercover. By 2006, Falco had helped law enforcement gather sufficient evidence to charge numerous Vagos with serious crimes (though most pled out and received shorter sentences). Yet, even after entering witness protection, Falco was evidently addicted to the informant's lifestyle; he then helped two ATF undercover agents set up an entire fake chapter of the Outlaws motorcycle gang ("infinitely more brutal and unpredictable"), pursuing further indictments in another long investigation. Although the author's approach aspires to be specific rather than general, the prose tends to be overheated and often sleazy, and the narrative becomes increasingly confusing. Despite Falco's proximity to the "one-percenters" he ensnared, he offers little insight into their character or motivations or the tangled history of these gangs. A blur of pulpy violence that may appeal to those who romanticize the biker lifestyle. The book is quite similar to George Rowe's Gods of Mischief (2013).

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April 15, 2013

Heart thumping, covered in sweat, his breath pumping in and out like a furnace, former drug dealer turned Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms informant Falco felt his mind racing with the thought that one misstep meant that everything--life, family, and friends--would be over. He faced constant anxiety during the year he spent deep undercover in some of the most notorious biker gangs in the country. He infiltrated this underworld wearing a wire, adopting a different personality, even entering solitary confinement in jail, all in the pursuit of scraping together enough evidence to bring to justice men who murdered on a whim. He became addicted to the work and walked a fine line between becoming a criminal and remaining a person who works, ultimately, for the law. VERDICT This book will make readers sweat along with its protagonist: the constant tension that Falco endured seeps through the pages. This window into the criminal biker culture offers a tale as grimy and bloody as the world its writer moved through. Recommended for those who enjoy true crime and stories about undercover agents and for readers interested in the criminal biker culture.--Ryan Claringbole, Chesapeake P.L., VA

Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 1, 2013
Facing more than 20 years behind bars for manufacturing and distributing methamphetamine, Falco quickly accepted the government's offer: in return for certain considerations, he would infiltrate the Vagos, a particularly nasty Southern California biker gang. Unfortunately, Falco wasn't a biker and had no experience with biker gangs. Like William Queen's Under and Alone (2005) and Jay Dobyns' No Angel (2009), this is a tense, violent, frequently distasteful story of a man living in a world of extreme violence, afraid his cover could be blown at any second. Of course, Dobyns and Queen were actual undercover agents. Falco was a regular guy with no training or experience, which makes the story that much more harrowing. In describing his nearly five years living with three separate biker gangs, Falco, ably assisted by true-crime author Droban, whose Running with the Devil (2007) followed a government infiltration of the Hells Angels, makes the reader feel at least some of the fear, disgust, and sheer panic he endured. The book contains some graphic language and descriptions, but, given its subject matter, most readers will probably assume that going in.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)