Crooked Little Vein by Warren Ellis

This is, as far as I know, the first prose novel from Warren Ellis.
Ellis has, to date written many comic books, many GOOD comic books.

Crooked Little Vein is a short novel (its 280 pages, but the text is
oversized, so it reads quickly) about a private investigator named Mike
McGill. McGill is your basic hardboiled detective, slovenly and sleeping
in his office, hoping for a case so that he can pay the bills. In walks
the Secretary of State, who gives McGill the task of finding an
alternate version of the constitution, written by the same forefathers
who penned the first one, one that would ensure political victory for
the owner. Its gone missing since Richard Nixon gave it away as hush
payment. Since that time its gone through several hands. McGill's job is
to track it down.

We also find out very quickly that McGill has a talent, or maybe an
attraction for deviant (or should we just call them alternate sexual
lifestyles?), by which I mean not that he is into those scenes but
somehow he always seems to come in contact, during his investigations,
with them. And that leads to his assistant, Trix, a young woman writing
a thesis on alternate sexual lifestyles. She has some unusual habits of
her own, and is fascinated by the whole underground of sexual
alternatives.

The book follows McGill and Trix across country in an effort to find the
much sought after tome.

I can't say I don't find the book fascinating, but at the same time I
can't help but hope that much of the detail of the alternatives, are
just figments of the warped mind of Mr. Ellis, but somehow I'm thinking
its not...

I've been told that many folks are comparing Mr. Ellis' writing to Kurt
Vonnegut, and I guess I can see that in the cynicism of the tale. But
me? If I had to do that type of comparrison, I'd have to go with a cross
between Joe R. Lansdale and Neal Stephenson, with a little Larry Flint
(?) thrown into the mix.

Not for the faint of heart, but otherwise a very fun, fast paced read.

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