Crooked Little Story

Crooked Little Vein
Published by William Morrow

Author Warren Ellis



I cannot remember exactly how I stumbled upon this story.  Using my kung fu google skills, I searched for a different book. One of the links took me to a title called, Crooked Little Vein.

I skimmed the book description: 

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.


I felt that the time had come for a break from paranormal romance to read an old fashioned detective story.

Warren Ellis has written a book to detail the investigation of a PI following the trail of a nefarious book.  I thought this was a book about corruption in the White House.  I clearly did not read the book jacket.


Our hero, Michael McGill, described as a Shit magnet in the book jacket does have that quality. I think one could also write that if this guy were a pair of black slacks, then the world would be a white haired cat.   
It is that bad.
This  guy can not enjoy first-class on an airplane without the Shit joining him for a drink. 
Some he does bring to himself as in this scene that follows a meeting with a beautiful woman:

An hour later, I walked into some freak bar on Bleecker Street and yelled, "I'm buying a hundred drinks -- for me!"
Oh, they beat the shit out of me.  

Reading this book, reminded me a little of Christopher Moore's writing.

McGill takes this beautiful woman, Trix,  with him as he traverses the country searching for the book.  Unlike him, she is not a white dress in a room full of black haired cats instead she is that black cat.  What finds him, sticks to him and merely excites her.
They make an odd couple.  Their attraction to one another a mystery. 

Our author has a statement to make with this book and does so without much subtlety.  You will see it.  It will hit you like a screen door on a windy day.

The characters have an uncompromising honesty leaving little to be assumed.  Despite this, I would not describe them as well-developed.   Ellis uses McGill to represent the ordinary guy in a perverse world.  His reactions are typical.  I understood him. Trix represents that thrill seeking pleasure hording part of modern life.  Her behavior was expected.  Although, I found her to be completely disturbing and a little naive about the true meaning of acceptance considering that she injects saline into her labia to simulate testicles. 



I read this book in a day. It would make the most excellent independent film.  On the same level as Hard Candy.  

The short, choppy chapters are packed with fetishes, the strangest love story ever,  lizard love, and bukkake. 
At 277 pages I give it a B-