6 CHAMBERS, 1 BULLET

Once more—with a little help from his friends—the author of Hell's Angel tracks the free-wheeling adventures of Patch Kincade (Dead in 5 Heartbeats, 2003), biker Galahad.

Patch has his code, chivalric in its own rough-hewn way. Wake him at three in the morning, for instance, with the news that a fellow member of the Infidelz Motor Club is in need, and he's in action. Never mind that his bed is in Arizona, while the troubled brother is in California, the issue is loyalty, and Patch would “rather crawl over broken glass” than not make the five-hour “megaputt.” But even Patch, super-biker that he is, can't be in two places simultaneously. Having doused the California mini-blaze, he returns to Phoenix to discover that a conflagration has broken out in his absence. Four of his band of bikers have been murdered, their bodies stashed among the sausages and sides of beef in a meat-packer's freezer—astride their Harleys yet. Suddenly, Patch is catching heat. For a former club president, he's told, for an anointed 1%er (“the baddest of the bad”), the bar is never lowered. So where's the performance, demand Big Head, Gorgeous George, Caesar and others. Stung, Patch fires up Mean Machine II, vowing to take down the villain who stripped Infidelz of four of its most respected brawlers. But questions abound. First, why?; next, who? and—most perplexing—where?; that is, where is the no-good to be found? In the federal lock-up, it turns out, meaning that Patch sees no recourse but to get himself sent up. Which for him is hardly a problem. But in a haystack full of 1%ers, finding the right needle can be a problem.

Violent, brutal and, of course, just about mindless.