Crooked Little Vein: A Novel

Burned-out private detective and self-styled shit magnet Michael McGill needed a wake-up call to jump-start his dead career. What he got was a virtual cattle prod to the crotch, in the form of an impossible assignment delivered directly from the president's heroin-addict chief of staff. It seems the Constitution of the United States has some skeletons in its closet: the Founding Fathers doubted that the document would be able to stave off human nature indefinitely, so they devised a backup Constitution to deploy at the first sign of crisis. In the government's eyes, that time is now, as America is overgrown with perverts who spend more time surfing the Web for fetish porn than they do reading a newspaper. They want to use this "Secret Constitution" to drive the country back to a time when civility, God, and mom's homemade apple pie were all that mattered.The only problem is, no one can seem to find it . . .So who better to track it down than a private dick who's so down-and-out that he's coming up the other side, a shamus whose only skill is stumbling into every depraved situation imaginable?With no lead to speak of, and no knowledge of the underground world in which the Constitution has traveled, McGill embarks on a cross-country odyssey of America's darkest, dankest underbelly. Along the way, his white-bread sensibilities are treated to a smorgasbord of depravity that runs the gamut of human imagination. The filth mounts; it is clear that this isn't the kind of life, liberty, or happiness that Thomas Jefferson thought Americans would enjoy in the twenty-first century.But what McGill learns as he closes in on the real Constitution is that freedom takes many forms, the most important of which may be the fight against the "good old days." Like Vonnegut, Orwell, and Huxley before him, Warren Ellis deftly exposes the hypocrisy of the "moral majority" by giving us a glimpse at the monstrous outcome that their overzealous policies would achieve.

Amazon.com Review

Michael McGill is a burned-out private detective who suddenly becomes enlisted by an army of presidential goons to retrieve the Constitution of the United States, but not the one we all know about. This would be the real Constitution (the one with invisible amendments) created by some of the Founding Fathers as a fallback for their great experiment. Along the way, McGill gains a polyamorous sidekick named Trix, gets scared to death by what men do with warm salty water, and descends into a world where crime, sex, and madness all seem to be the same thing. Full of mind-bending style and packed with a wild cast of characters, Crooked Little Vein infuses Robert B. Parker with Kurt Vonnegut and the madness of the graphic-novel world. A surprisingly surreal treat, it will appeal to hardcore comic fans, mystery aficionados, and all readers looking for a riotous summer reading adventure. Sample Chapter One of Crooked Little Vein "Chapter One. I opened my eyes to see the rat taking a piss in my coffee mug. It was a huge brown bastard; had a body like a turd with legs and beady black eyes full of secret rat knowledge." Crooked Little Vein puts you right in the gutter from the first sentence and doesn't let up. Sample the goods with a look at the complete first chapter, and see if you don't get hooked.

From Publishers Weekly

At the start of this dark, demented fiction debut from Ellis, the creator of DC Comics' Transmetropolitan and The Authority, the U.S. president's heroin-addicted chief of staff hires 25-year-old Lower East Side PI Mike McGill to find the other Constitution. This is a secret document privately authored by several of the Founders detailing the real intent of their design for American society, which a debauched vice-president Nixon lost in the '50s. With half a mill in black ops money, Mike hires cute tattooed Trix Holmes to be his guide to America's deviant underworld, whence the 50-year-old cold trail begins. In their search for the missing document, reputedly bound in the skin of the extraterrestrial entity that plagued Benjamin Franklin's ass over six nights in Paris, the pair make some wild pit stops in Columbus, Ohio; San Antonio, Tex.; Vegas; and, finally, L.A. The home of the free and the land of the brave has rarely looked so creepy in this snappily paced homage to William Burroughs's Naked Lunch. (Aug.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Bookmarks Magazine

Warren Ellis is best known for his many comic books and graphic novels (among them, Transmetropolitan, The Authority, Fell, and Desolation Jones), as well as television and video game scripts. While some of the plots in his graphic novels can be unceasingly dark, Crooked Little Vein, Ellis's first prose novel, comes across as an absurdist catalog of fetish porn and depravity and a tongue-in-cheek examination of morality and hypocrisy in an Internet culture. Fans of Ellis's previous work will warm to the subject immediately, recognizing both the author's own peculiar genius and his debt to Raymond Chandler, Chuck Palahniuk, and William S. Burroughs. This book's not for everyone, though, and few readers will be ambivalent about it when they've finished.Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc.

From Booklist

Comics scribe Ellis has cartoonish fun with his debut novel, which satirizes America's dark underbelly and the authoritarian government out to carve it loose. Private eye Michael McGill doesn't think his luck could get much worse, until the president's chief of staff (think a heroin-addled Dick Cheney) hires him to track down a secret second U.S. Constitution written by the Founding Fathers—a sort of practical manual for future White House occupants. The document, which might help purify the nation's wayward populace, ironically has become black-market currency exchanged among power brokers seeking increasingly perverse thrills. This leads McGill and wholesome sex-freak sidekick Trix into a series of encounters straight out of a junior-high session of "You know what's grosser than gross?" Readers who appreciate the two nipple jokes in the first chapter can settle in and enjoy the ride. But they also should know Ellis doesn't trust them very much. He bangs away at the book's thesis—that the Internet has turned underground culture into mainstream fare—like a drunk repeatedly shouting out a joke to departing patrons at closing time. Sennett, Frank

Los Angeles Times Book Review

“A heart-shredding work of scatological brilliance that gleefully annihilates private-eye tropes and pole-vaults over taste lines.”

Entertainment Weekly, EW 100 Pick

“[A] brilliantly nasty and weird detective novel.”

Globe and Mail (Toronto)

“[C]ompletely compulsive, impossible to put down.”

Chicago Tribune

“CROOKED LITTLE VEIN...is a book readers will not soon forget.”

Entertainment Weekly

“Not for the faint of heart...surprisingly funny (with shades of Lamb author Christopher Moore).”

Lansing State Journal

“[M]ay be destined to become one of the great underground classics of the 21st century.”

The Gazette (Montreal)

“A relentlessly fascinating page-turner...brilliantly and effervescently subversive.”

Los Angeles Times

“Ellis is a formidable talent whose wit and insight fit perfectly into the crime genre.”

Philadelphia Inquirer

“[A] much-needed kick in the butt for a genre that may be more stagnant than its enthusiasts realize.”

Winnipeg Free Press

“Packed with exciting, hilarious, and disturbing events...outrageously entertaining.”

Toronto Star

“So funny you may just laugh out loud.”

New York magazine

“If you’re looking for an antidote to the stifling formulae of genre fiction, this could be your book.”

Brad Meltzer, New York Times bestselling author of THE BOOK OF FATE and writer of The Justice League series

“Get ready for a wonderful kick in the teeth that’ll make you lick your bloody lip with masochistic joy. ”

William Gibson, author of Spook Country

“Stop it. You’re frightening me.”

Charlotte Observer

“[L]augh-out-loud funny...a deeply inventive look at the undercurrents beneath the mainstream popular culture.”

Joss Whedon, creator, writer and director of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer series

“Funny, inventive and blithely appalling, this book is Dante on paint fumes.”

Forbes.com

“[S]omewhere between the noir of Frank Miller and dark comedy of Chuck Palahniuk.”

Library Journal

“A high-energy joyride.”

Kevin J. Anderson, New York Times bestselling co-author of HUNTERS OF DUNE

“CROOKED LITTLE VEIN is a gem of a book -- angry, hilarious, and just plain weird...compulsively so.”

Kinky Friedman, author of Ten Little Indians

“Warren Ellis writes like a bi-polar Raymond Chandler.”

Myspace Books

“There’s at least one surprise, laugh, and genius turn of phrase per page here. ”

Madison County Herald (Mississippi)

“Think Kurt Vonnegut having tea with William Burroughs and a bipolar Raymond Chandler...Ellis takes your breath away.”

Publishers Weekly

“[A] snappily paced homage to William Burroughs’ Naked Lunch.”

Boise Weekly

“[A] fast-paced and funny read...unforgettable.”

Neal Bohl for Crimespree

“CROOKED LITTLE VEIN is a wild, rambling, funny look at the dark alleys of the American sexual landscape.”

PopMatters.com

“Rich, dark humor and biting look at the world.”

From the Back Cover

Burned-out private detective and self-styled shit magnet Michael McGill needed a wake-up call to jump-start his dead career. What he got was a virtual cattle prod to the crotch, in the form of an impossible assignment delivered directly from the president's heroin-addict chief of staff. It seems the Constitution of the United States has some skeletons in its closet: the Founding Fathers doubted that the document would be able to stave off human nature indefinitely, so they devised a backup Constitution to deploy at the first sign of crisis. In the government's eyes, that time is now, as America is overgrown with perverts who spend more time surfing the Web for fetish porn than they do reading a newspaper. They want to use this "Secret Constitution" to drive the country back to a time when civility, God, and mom's homemade apple pie were all that mattered.The only problem is, no one can seem to find it . . .So who better to track it down than a private dick who's so down-and-out that he's coming up the other side, a shamus whose only skill is stumbling into every depraved situation imaginable?With no lead to speak of, and no knowledge of the underground world in which the Constitution has traveled, McGill embarks on a cross-country odyssey of America's darkest, dankest underbelly. Along the way, his white-bread sensibilities are treated to a smorgasbord of depravity that runs the gamut of human imagination. The filth mounts; it is clear that this isn't the kind of life, liberty, or happiness that Thomas Jefferson thought Americans would enjoy in the twenty-first century.But what McGill learns as he closes in on the real Constitution is that freedom takes many forms, the most important of which may be the fight against the "good old days." Like Vonnegut, Orwell, and Huxley before him, Warren Ellis deftly exposes the hypocrisy of the "moral majority" by giving us a glimpse at the monstrous outcome that their overzealous policies would achieve.

About the Author

Warren Ellis is one of the most prolific, read, and admired graphic novelists in the world and the creator of Transmetropolitan and The Authority. He lives in southern England with his partner, Niki, and their daughter, Lilith. He never sleeps.

Reviews

News