'Apart from Irish whiskey, good cigars, Pontiac motor cars, and a pistol grip baby .410 shotgun with solid load shells, what I love the most is kidnapping smartarse gangsters and taking their money.' Mark Brandon 'Chopper' Read is the son of a strict Seventh Day Adventist mother and a shell-shocked former soldier who slept with a loaded gun at his side. Bullied at school, he grew up dreaming of revenge. He became a criminal legend who terrorised drug dealers, pimps, thieves and armed robbers on the streets and in jail ? but boasts he never hurt an innocent member of the public. This first volume of Chopper's memoirs, written from inside jail and laced with his trademark brutal humour, tells the story of his early life of crime ? from streetfighter to standover man, gunman to long-term prisoner ? and launched his career as a bestselling author.