Hizzy: The Autobiography of Steve Hislop with Stuart Barker: Hizzy's story is one of tragedies, accidents and triumphs. Written by the biking hero himself, this book is a frank and often-voyeuristic account of his action-packed life.
The tone is unpretentious, with the reader being lured into his life by Stuart Barker who skilfully stays hidden in the background.
It opens with a description, in stuntman-like detail, by Steve 'Hizzy' Hislop's of his spectacular accident at Brands Hatch in 2000. "I was thrown 15 feet in the air and started cart wheeling towards the gravel trap. My bike was spinning end over end and it slammed into my head twice. I landed square on the top of my head planted in the ground. Then finally I tumbled over, knocked out cold and lifeless."
Miraculously Hislop survived and went on to win the TT in the Isle of Man 11 times - and the British Superbike title in 1995 and in 2002.
His countless crashes pepper the book, from crashing his car into neighbour's hedges to schoolboy antics before he even got the whiff of engine oil. An anecdote of a young Hislop honing his skills by hurtling down hills in an oil drum nicely introduces the reader to a complex, courageous man.
The narrative shifts as the authoritative TT winner displays his palpable knowledge of the most difficult circuit in the world and the way he particularly negotiated it. By the time he got to race his first TT in 1983 he was familiar with every bump, hollow, corner and rise in the road. Having spent years listening to his father and friends talk endlessly about the circuit, the knowledge permeated his childhood brain. "I could recite the main points of the course at five years of age," he says.
As racer and mechanic the author doesn't spare the reader the minutiae of fine-tuning a race bike. Nor are the exciting details of a big race spared: Hizzy's head-to-head with Carl Fogarty in the 1992 Senior TT on a Norton makes for gripping reading.
Hislop was never a stranger to death. The losses he suffered are documented in painful detail. His father, Sandy, died of a massive heart attack in Steve's arms when was only 17-years-old. He was his mentor and a keen racer who passed on his love of motorcycling to both his sons. That death haunted Hizzy for the rest of his days.
He came face to face with the "death-side" of racing when his brother Garry died in a crash at a race in Silloth but this didn't deter him. He never blamed the sport for taking his only brother at the age of 19 because racing was such a natural part of his life.
Steve Hislop was killed in a helicopter crash in his native Scotland last August.
A beautifully written, touching and tragic story, Hizzy will entertain and captivate the reader at every turn.
• Hizzy: The Autobiography of Steve Hislop with Stuart Barker -
CollinsWillow 25.65 (Hardback)