Tuesday 4 April 2023

Viper - Raymond Thorp

THE TRUE AND TERRIFYING STORY OF A DRUG ADDICT


WDL BOOKS T.S.891
FIRST PRINTING 1960
LONDON, UK
FIRST PUBLISHED IN HARDBACK BY ROBERT HALE 1956

The Confessions of a Drug Addict

For the first time in this country since de Quincey, a drug addict has written his astounding confessions; a documentary that horrifies yet compels the reader to walk with Thorp into the half-light of London's drug world.

The author, a young clerk from suburbia, haunts the jazz clubs of Soho and finally begins to smoke Indian hemp - or marijuana. It is the first step on the road to prison and to a living death. Soon he is a "pusher" - agent for a drug ring selling hemp and heroin. He tells how London's two big dealers obtain their supplies, how they are distributed and where they are sold. Thorp holds nothing back. He writes of clubs and cafes where addicts gathered until Scotland Yard's vice squad, by raiding them, split up the gatherings. At one time he is living in a luxury flat, bought from the proceeds of illegal sales, but slowly he begins to slide to degradation.

Saturday 1 April 2023

Speed Freaks - Peter Cave

To the Angels, class means speed


Publisher: New English Library (NEL)

Number: 450 02632 9

Publishing Year: March 1975

Printing: New Edition (Second)

Cover Price: 35p

Filming the Angel's life is different and more difficult than filming a pop festival. But Gerry Shipton manages to persuade his backers that this film will hit. But only as long as he includes other speeding thrills.

The speedway, the Wall of Death, open up new grounds for the Hell's Angels to show off their daredevil skills, prove their reckless courage. Dreams of stardom and the silver screen are new expeditions for them. So Gerry finds that things get out of control. Everything they touch turns sour; their mark of destruction.

Another great Hell's Angel story from Peter Cave, that is just too close to the truth to be ignored.