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  • Published: 17 October 2016
  • ISBN: 9780143572879
  • Imprint: Penguin
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 320
  • RRP: $30.00
Categories:

The Real Chopper

The Man Behind the Legend Inside and Out




Adam Shand – bestselling author of Big Shots: Carl Williams and the Gangland Murders – disentangles the persona of 'Chopper' from Mark Read, the man. Chopper took over Read's life, made him famous but then refused to let him go.

Criminal, murderer, raconteur, author ... mythmaker?

Mark Brandon 'Chopper' Read is undoubtedly Australia's best-known criminal. Author of many bestselling books about the underworld he inhabited, and subject of a smash-hit film, his story has become part of the country's culture. And Read certainly knew how to spin a yarn.

Adam Shand – bestselling author of Big Shots: Carl Williams and the Gangland Murders – disentangles the persona of 'Chopper' from Mark Read, the man. Chopper took over Read's life, made him famous but then refused to let him go.

With unparalleled access to lovers, friends and enemies, Shand learns that 'Uncle Chop Chop', was much more than the 'earless monster' he created.

  • Published: 17 October 2016
  • ISBN: 9780143572879
  • Imprint: Penguin
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 320
  • RRP: $30.00
Categories:

About the author

Adam Shand

Adam Shand is a writer with nearly thirty years' experience in television, print, radio and online media. As a freelance journalist, he covered the rise to power of Nelson Mandela in South Africa, the aftermath of the genocide in Rwanda and the corruption of Zimbabwe's democracy. He is the bestselling author of The Skull: Informers, Hit Men and Australia's Toughest Cop; Big Shots: Carl Williams and the Gangland Murders; King of Thieves: The Adventures of Arthur Delaney and The Kangaroo Gang; Outlaws: The Truth about Australian Bikers; and Carl Williams: The Short Life and Violent Times of Melbourne's Gangland Drug Lord.

Also by Adam Shand

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Praise for The Real Chopper

Finally the whole truth about Australia’s most famous stand-over man, Mark Brandon “Chopper” Read: murderer, performer, poet, author, artist, winemaker and larger-than-life character ... Adam [Shand] leaves no stone unturned in his quest to find out what is real and what was manufactured by Chopper for the sake of a good story.

Queensland Times

Shand has gone behind the myths to find the man himself.

Janet Fife-Yeomans, Herald Sun

Thanks to careful sifting and weighing of available evidence by Adam Shand, an exper­ienced reporter and true crime writer who met his subject in a professional context more than once, we can say that Read was a genuine mythmaker.

Simon Caterson, The Australian

Shand followed Chopper's case for years, trawled through his prison file and interrogated his friends and enemies ... in reality, Chopper was just a fraction of the myth he created.

Daniel Piotrowski, Daily Mail Australia