In 1972's The Run - the final book in his 'Chopper' trilogy of biker novels- author Peter Cave opted to 'go big' by restaging the American civil war in Torquay as Southern bikers battled Northern Bikers over the rights of blacks to be admitted into the English chapter of the Hells Angels. For his next biker novel, Rogue Angels, Cave instead adopts the approach of 'go ugly' amplifying the levels of violence and nihilism much louder than before.
A book that pits the one per cent against the one
percenters, Rogue Angels centers around William Fletcher, a high flying company
director who has fought hard for the finer things in life. Fletcher's drive
earning him three cars, an old Tudor Mansion in Weybridge and a beautiful wife.
The moment Cave begins painting Fletcher as the epitome of a working class,
East End kid made good, you know the worst is going to happen. Sure enough
Fletcher's Mercedes gets caught up in an altercation with Hells Angels. His initial, native belief that these bikers
are harmless kids and the victims of tabloid scaremongering "the
frightening stories seemed like so much rubbish invented by reporters with
fertile imaginations" proves to be tragically incorrect when they begin
spitting at and trashing his car. Incensed Fletcher retaliates, only to receive
a tire iron through his window, causing a car accident that costs Fletcher's
wife her life, and leaves Fletcher with life changing injuries. "Half of
his lower jaw and most of his right-hand cheekbone had been smashed away"
while Fletcher's inability to grow back a full beard "gave him the look of
a piebald alopecic".
Whereas the majority of vigilante themed books and movies try and persuade you to get behind their protagonists, Fletcher is an alienating, frighteningly inhuman character, willing to resort to despicable acts in order to achieve his revenge. Would we have supported Death Wish's Paul Kersey if he had responded to the attack on his family by going out and mugging or sexually assaulting members of the public? Fletcher though has no qualms about terrorizing innocent people in order to win favor within the Hells Angels community, where he earns himself the nickname 'Werewolf Willie'. Not only that, but Fletcher also gets off on doing so, admitting that "action and violence had started a warm glow spreading across his groin" after leading an assault on a Pakistani discotheque.
Whereas
The Run had flirted with depicting the Hells Angels in a heroic light, by having
them pick up the noble clause of defending their black brothers while not
shying away from the fact that they also commit gang rape and senseless
vandalism along the way, there is no such ambiguity in Rogue Angels. Fletcher's
mob is irredeemably bad, consisting of head cases and hardcore criminality who
think nothing of dishing out extreme violence and death. The bloodshed here occasionally rising to a level
more associated with Guy N Smith "the cold metal sliced into his belly,
slicing out his guts as neatly as the disemboweling sword of a kamikaze".
They are not the only ones who have upped their
game either. The Suedeheads -depicted in the earlier books as helpless human punch
bags for the Hells Angels- turn out to be a formidable enemy here. Mainly due
to their acumination of 'Battle Trucks' big American cars described as
"travelling arsenals of weapons and tools of destruction in the capacious
boots, the cars might carry everything from knives and cudgels to garden sprays
filled with acid and paint stripper". If Cave wasn't pulling these ideas
from real life, he was certainly giving the Suedeheads a few useful ideas in
Rogue Angels.
Just as Rogue Angels captures Cave's male
characters at their most violent, it's female characters rank as the most
skankiest Cave ever wrote, with well fitting names like Shagger Lil and Plater
Pat. After Plater Pat has lived up to her nickname by fellating Fletcher and
another biker, Fletcher kicks her in the ribs and remarks "Ok sweetheart,
you've been well fed...now go get us some food". Which is as romantic as
Rogue Angels gets. In another sordid sexual encounter Fletcher is obliged to screw
the Angels’ resident gang bang queen Shagger Lil, after many bikers have
already had the pleasure "he shuddered inside, thinking of the
mathematical odds in favour of the girl carrying VD". Fortunately Shagger
takes him in hand "as though his penis were a bar of gold" dispelling
the other bikers' concerns that Fletcher doesn't like girls. One of the many
factoids to be acquired from Rogue Angels is that gay men of the time who were
into bikes and leather earned themselves the nickname "Penis Pirates"
a missed opportunity for a spinoff novel if ever there was one.
Rogue Angels might be Cave at his most callous,
the book is dedicated to eleven different women 'who helped me through a very
nasty patch' and you suspect an even larger harem would have been needed to
pull him out of the dark place that Rogue Angels came from. Even so, Cave's
sense of humour does manage to shine through the darkness. The author especially
having fun here at the expense of Fletcher's motley crew. Biker ‘Little Lou’ is
the source of some unlikely name dropping when Cave mentions Lou has 'violet
Elizabeth Taylor eyes' and 'was an ardent fan of the late Adolph Hitler'.
Whilst Sweet William 'sucked raw eggs off the pavement, French kissed his
friends in public and shouted the vilest obscenities at shopping housewives or
exercising nuns". Along the way you also have to spare a thought for
Shagger Lil's mum, after her daughter's suitors show up at the Shagger
Household and tell her "we only want to screw your daughter...but don't
worry she's on the pill" before unzipping themselves and ‘giving the lawn
and flowers and unusual watering’.
I've previously stuck my neck out and claimed that endings are a Peter Cave strong point, and Rogue Angels isn't about to throw a spanner in the works there, in fact this might be his best ever ending. While Cave did have one more biker book in him, Speed Freaks, by rights Rogue Angels feels as if it should have been the last stop. Its ending not only having an explosive air of finality about it, but also of the author cleansing himself of this extremely dirty subject matter.
If you do only ever read one Cave biker book, make it Rogue Angels. Just be aware that by skipping straight to this one, you are less being thrown in the deep end, and more having your face forced in the deep end by a leather boot. Rogue Angels is the evil runt of the Cave biker litter, leave your humanity at the door.
