Product Description

Bullied at school, and growing up dreaming of revenge, Mark 'Chopper' Read determined to be the toughest in any company. He became a crime commando who terrorised drug dealers, pimps, thieves and armed robbers on the streets and in jail - but boasts never to have hurt an innocent member of the public. Streetfighter, gunman and underworld executioner, he has been earmarked for death a dozen times but has lived to tell the tale. This is it.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #657598 in Books
• Published on: 2001-04-30
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 243 pages

Review
"'Apart from Irish whiskey, good cigars, Pontiac motor cars, and a pistol grip baby, what I love most is kidnapping smart-arse gangsters and taking their money.' 'So I shot Nick the Greek and burned his house down? So what? If you met him, you'd want to burn his house down too...' 'To the human filth I have bashed, belted, iron-barred, axed, shot, stabbed, knee-capped, set on fire and driven to their graves, I can only quote from the motto of the French Foreign Legion- Je Ne Regrette Rien!!!'"

Customer Reviews

The luckiest criminal to ever live
The autobiography of Mark Brandon Read ‘Chopper’ gives us a unique and seldom told insight into the criminal underworld of Australia, particularly Melbourne. The story begins by an infatuation with guns, explosives and military history crossed-wired with a young child who spent a lot of time drugged up in a psychiatric rehabilitation prison. Mix two vital ingredients together and you’re left with a dangerous man.

Probably the most sought-after criminal in Australia, Chopper acquired his enemies through his friends’ enemies and from robbing the bank robbers and other similar criminals. He’s killed plentiful, but protests “I’m no murderer…I’m a garbage disposal expert” and from a certain perspective, his tales hold a strong point of view. The only men he has claimed to kill are murderers themselves, drug dealers and rapists. Any other men he has killed may well have been innocent, but Chopper was acting purely in self-defence.

Spending most of his life behind bars, Chopper inevitably made friends with other inmates and also confronted his worst enemies. Cleverly thought out antics and plots to burn down prisons are just a range of things Chopper and friends would execute in an attempt to relieve boredom and pass time. Nevertheless he claims: - “It is a madhouse in prison – and twice as bad outside,”

Packed with hilarious non-chronological stories about imbecilic big shot gangsters; Close attempts to wipe out Chopper; And a world where criminals fear Chopper over the law; this book will keep you thoroughly entertained from start to finish.

In his own words; “You can fool some of the people all of the time, And you can even fool all of the people some of the time, but in the real world of blood and guts you don’t fool Chopper Read any of the time.”

Very Disappointing
I have read stories about Chopper read in the past and have seen his excellent movie. I was hoping that this book would tell the truth about his violent past. I wanted to read how it felt to be stabbed, beaten and have your ears cut off and about the villains he caught and what he did to them to exact his revenge. Sadly the book reads more like a "who's who" of the Australian underworld almost as if he was paying homage to his foe. The first few chapters are dedicated to telling you about his friends, but this is not what you want from an autobiography is it? You want to know about the man himself and are ultimately frustrated by the lack of information.

He refuses to talk about his childhood because "it would make grown men sick". This is very disappointing since these formative years made the man who he is and it would have given the reader an excellent insight into how a person's upbringing provides the direction they will follow for the rest of their lives.

Chopper seems like a nice bloke underneath the ultra-violent façade. On occasion he opens-up and tells you things he reckons to have never told anyone before. He certainly does not glamorise his criminal past simply because he does not tell you enough about it.

This is a very disappointing autobiography that starts well but quickly becomes tedious. I am hoping that "Chopper 2" will include the material which is sorely missed from this book.

Keeping it real
Chopper is bad, you wouldn't even want to meet him in a well lit room full of people... the man is a maniac. The good thing about him is that he let's us "normal" people get a look into the mind of the criminally insane... and what we get to see is a world where nothing i holy and death is laughed at. He writes with great homur and detail about how he tortures and kills his victims, and you read it laughing... until you remind yourself that this is for real. He's actually done these horrible things and you start feeling sick and keep on reading. The book also contains a few cool pics of the author.