Three years of resolute weightlifting had not gone as planned for this scrawny 18-year-old. But it was 1980 and a legal prescription for the magic elixir, anabolic steroids, was just $20. Now he would transform himself while away at college and return home with trophy-winning strength and a body like a Greek god—a Charles Atlas magazine ad come to life.

   That didn’t go quite as planned either. This revealing memoir recounts an athlete’s experiences with performance enhancing drugs at a time when the public and law enforcement knew little about them. Venturing into the “steroid underground,” the author used and sold them, was featured in muscle magazines, went under a surgeon’s knife and faced interrogation by a federal marshal.