In September 2000, veteran reporter Michel Auger was shot six times in the parking lot of Le Journal de Montréal. Many English-speaking Canadians, unfamiliar with Auger’s work in the French-language newspaper, discovered that the reporter had made a long and distinguished career chronicling the exploits of Quebec’s organized crime world, a career he almost paid for with his life that day. Auger survived the assassination attempt and was able to call 911 from his cell phone while lying in a pool of his own blood.

Auger was especially interested in the Quebec Mafia and biker gangs, in particular the activities of the notorious Hells Angels. (One commentator even suggested that Auger deserved the shooting, since he’d seemed at times to go out of his way to provoke the province’s high-profile crime leaders.) Not one to be intimidated, Auger has written The Biker Who Shot Me, a memoir recounting more than three decades of covering the Quebec crime scene as both a print reporter and television correspondent.

Although the book is a personal narrative, readers who follow the Canadian underworld scene won’t be disappointed. Auger provides firsthand anecdotes about his meetings with nearly every major and minor crime figure operating in Canada during the last 40 years, and it’s hard to imagine a more concise compendium of these characters than his chapter entitled “Famous Criminals.”

There’s lots in here, too, about the role of journalism and the media in Canadian life, as Auger weaves his own small-town-reporter-made-good story into the compelling narrative. The story expertly reaches its peak where Auger’s personal journey and the people he writes about collide in the attempted killing.