The Biker Who Shot Me: Reflections of a Crime Reporter

Few journalists – at least in North America – can have received such a graphic demonstration of the dangers of freedom of the press than Michel Auger. Two years ago, as many will recall, the Journal de Montreal reporter took six bullets in the back while standing in his paper’s parking lot. At press time the attempted assassin remains at large; it’s widely assumed the shooting was the work of a member of Quebec’s criminal biker community acting on the command of higher-ups upset with Auger’s continued probing into their activities. Auger emerged remarkably unscathed from the attack, and now presents this memoir of three decades on the trail of Quebec’s varied and nefarious underworld. Meet drug lords, crooked lawyers, ancient gangsters (there’s an appearance by Alvin “Creepy” Karpis of the Ma Barker Gang), bikers galore and yes, Mom Boucher, as Auger recounts, often with surprising humour, his decades on the beat. Anyone looking for a full picture of what makes Quebec tick should have this on the shelf to complement their guides to more, ahem, law-abiding culture. mRb