The troubles continue for the Winnipeg Hells Angels. Authorities have seized their clubhouse, which looks more like a suburban ranch-style home than a bunker, although its nestled behind a graveyard, which gives it an edgy feel when you drive up to it. Authorities charge the bikers planned crimes within its walls, giving them justification to shut it down. I’ve heard that the Sherbrooke Hells Angels clubhouse was kept cleaner than the average college frathouse, with posters on the walls warning visitors to refrain from drugs. The idea’s to keep authorities from raiding it and shutting it down too.

Any journalist who hasn’t read Hunter S. Thompson isn’t that interested in being a journalist. And Thompson’s Hell’s Angels, while 43 years old, remains a great read and a great slice of biker history. Here’s a look at Thompson taking some heat after the publication of Hell’s Angels.

A reader points out that Boxer  Muscedere was impressed by the German Bandidos’ concept of brotherhood, even if his Canadian Bandidos weren’t able to duplicate this. He also notes that those German Bandidos have just reached a truce with the Hells Angels, which they say they’ll enforce with a strong hand. I hesitate to call this enforcement “policing.” The word just doesn’t seem to fit.

The old idiom “Nature abhors a vacuum” applies to crime as well. As long as there are customers for illegal services, there will be sellers, and we shouldn’t be surprised that they’re often nasty folks. A recent crackdown on the Hells Angels – and the earlier implosion of Taz Sandham’s Bandidos – has created a predictable scramble for turf in Winnipeg, with a spate of murders. What’s particularly disturbing is the young age of many of the victims. Until control is established, we can expect things to get worse before they get better. In many ways, it’s like the escalation of violence in Montreal’s underworld, with the absence of Vito Rizzuto, who’s due to be released from an American prison in 2012 on murder conspiracy charges.

Vito Rizzuto’s crime family haven’t always been at the centre of the Montreal underworld, and by extension, most of the rest of Canada. It just feels that way. His organization certainly played a subtle but undeniable role in the war between the Bandidos and Hells Angels, while regulating the price of street cocaine like a mainstream marketing board. Now someone is killing top members of the family, and there’s no indication the killings will stop. It’s hard to believe someone in the family isn’t helping the killers. It’s also clear that the killings will only help the Rizzutos’ old partners in crime in the Bonanno family of New York. A weakened Rizzuto crime family means a strong grip by New York in Canadian mob affairs.

I’ve heard David (Wolf) Carroll called alot of things, but this is a first from an Australian newspaper: “the bikie godfather of Halifax.” I’m sure Aussie biker can crunch bones with the toughest of them, but it’s still hard not to giggle at the word “bikie,” even when it’s used for an accused serial killer.

David (Wolf) Carroll, one of the secondary characters in the book, is making headlines Down Under. The Hells Angel Nomad chapter member has been one the run from police since before Sonny Barger got his first tattoo, or at least it seems that way. Now there’s word that he might be hiding out in Australia, although Brazil, the U.S., Mexico and French-speaking countries with Harley enthusiasts are also possibilities. It’s a safe bet he isn’t hanging out in the Woodbridge, Ontario area, as he’s not on the best of terms with the Loners there.

Outlaw bikers have been hounded for years by police, but Bavarian Hells Angels have recently come under attack from flying puppies as well. Fortunately the dog is fine after his airborn introduction to the bikers. No word on the current condition of the pup’s owner.

It’s interesting how different book projects tend to link up. After I wrote a book on a British spy from Victorian times called Delusion a couple of years ago, I passed on a copy to someone I wished to talk with for The Bandido Massacre: A True Story of Bikers, Brotherhood and Betrayal.

That copy of Delusion went to Glenn Atkinson, former Canadian secretary-treasurer of the Bandidos Motorcycle Club. It was Atkinson who thought up the nickname “No Surrender Crew” for the Toronto chapter of the Bandidos, a tag he borrowed from the IRA. Atkinson was known as a particularly literate sort in the biker world, and is perhaps the only outlaw biker to read the works of James Joyce inside a fortified clubhouse.

Atkinson is a surprisingly literate, soft-spoken and pleasant guy, and I often wondered how he ended up in such a group. I also often felt happy that he quit, since he could easily have been victim #9.

Atkinson is a one-time resident of Belfast and toured Britain as a rock drummer. He was in Ireland in the late 1990s as part of another outlaw motorcycle club, the Loners. The Loners had hoped to expand into Ireland, and Atkinson socialized with Irish bikers in hopes of securing tighter links with them. In the end, however, he found the Irish bikers to be pleasant hosts but far too independent to hook up with another club, especially one based in North America. Atkinson also found Ireland’s roadways a little confusing, and it was while in Ireland that he was given his biker nickname of “Wrongway.”

Toronto Bandidos had looked to Germany for support and guidance before the mass murder of four years ago. They had always been impressed by the level of organization of their German brother. After the massacre, Pierre (Carlito) Aragon, one of the few Toronto survivors, hoped again that European Bandidos, including the Germans, might somehow help. Obviously, that didn’t go far.

German Bandidos are in the news now, after reaching a truce with the Hells Angels. Interest in the Canadian debacle there means that a deal has just been reached to publish The Bandido Massacre in German. I imagine they’re shaking their heads over Wayne (Weiner) Kellestine, the ridiculous Nazi sympathizer who apparently never set foot in Germany, and who slaughtered his brothers while preaching love, loyalty and respect.