Skillful investigator Mike McGill has just been hired by the heroin-injecting chief of staffto reclaim a secret constitution, and his adventures lead him into a level of hell even Dante couldn't imagine. Eloquent and charming serial killers, genital-modifying policemen and reptilian porn fans challenge McGill's sanity as he seeks to retrieve the precious document. Ellis both mocks and pays tribute to the detective genre with this deliciously perverse tale of American fetishism. McLaren embodies McGill with all the investigator'swit and cynicism. His reading makes McGill's resigned disposition toward these events even more prescient through timing, tone and emphasis. Listeners can hear in McLaren's voice resistance clash against acquiescence as McGill contends with the more surreal aspects of life. Even the more exotic characters of the novel aren't turned into vocal caricatures but provided a quality and realistic voice that adds a deeper level of insanity to the individuals and the novel. Simultaneous release with the Morrow hardcover (Reviews, June 4). (Nov.)
Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information
Crooked Little Vein: A Novel
Narrated by Todd McLaren
Warren EllisUnabridged — 5 hours, 17 minutes
Crooked Little Vein: A Novel
Narrated by Todd McLaren
Warren EllisUnabridged — 5 hours, 17 minutes
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Overview
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 anybody looking for a riotous adventure.
Editorial Reviews
Ellis is known to readers of comics as the writer behind, among other works, the DC Comics "Transmetropolitan" series. Now he debuts his first novel. Private Detective Michael McGill's gritty life takes a turn for the bizarre when a drug-addicted White House chief of staff enlists him to recover the Constitution. The real Constitution, of course, not the one in the National Archives. This one was handed to the Founding Fathers by aliens, lost in the 1950s, and since traded among the nation's sexual deviants. McGill hits the road with sexpot Trix to track down its current holder. It's a high-energy joyride through a collection of lecherous situations best left undescribed here and likely to appeal primarily to adolescent males. While Ellis incorporates an element of Hunter S. Thompson-inspired gonzo journalism, that style works only as a reflection of the real(ish) world. When taken to the fictional extremes of an extraterrestrial legal document in the hands of a sexual underworld, it begins to feel a little contrived. Add to that the predictable and juvenile relationship between McGill and Trix, and it's apparent that Ellis suffers from some growing pains as he moves from comics to novels. For larger public libraries and collections where Ellis's comics are popular. [See Prepub Alert, LJ5/15/07.]
—Fred Baerkircher
A heart-shredding work of scatological brilliance that gleefully annihilates private-eye tropes and pole-vaults over taste lines.” — Los Angeles Times Book Review
“[A] brilliantly nasty and weird detective novel.” — Entertainment Weekly, EW 100 Pick
“[C]ompletely compulsive, impossible to put down.” — Globe and Mail (Toronto)
“CROOKED LITTLE VEIN...is a book readers will not soon forget.” — Chicago Tribune
“Not for the faint of heart...surprisingly funny (with shades of Lamb author Christopher Moore).” — Entertainment Weekly
“[M]ay be destined to become one of the great underground classics of the 21st century.” — Lansing State Journal
“A relentlessly fascinating page-turner...brilliantly and effervescently subversive.” — The Gazette (Montreal)
“Ellis is a formidable talent whose wit and insight fit perfectly into the crime genre.” — Los Angeles Times
“[A] much-needed kick in the butt for a genre that may be more stagnant than its enthusiasts realize.” — Philadelphia Inquirer
“Packed with exciting, hilarious, and disturbing events...outrageously entertaining.” — Winnipeg Free Press
“So funny you may just laugh out loud.” — Toronto Star
“If you’re looking for an antidote to the stifling formulae of genre fiction, this could be your book.” — New York magazine
“Get ready for a wonderful kick in the teeth that’ll make you lick your bloody lip with masochistic joy. ” — Brad Meltzer, New York Times bestselling author of THE BOOK OF FATE and writer of The Justice League series
“Stop it. You’re frightening me.” — William Gibson, author of Spook Country
“[L]augh-out-loud funny...a deeply inventive look at the undercurrents beneath the mainstream popular culture.” — Charlotte Observer
“Funny, inventive and blithely appalling, this book is Dante on paint fumes.” — Joss Whedon, creator, writer and director of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer series
“[S]omewhere between the noir of Frank Miller and dark comedy of Chuck Palahniuk.” — Forbes.com
“A high-energy joyride.” — Library Journal
“CROOKED LITTLE VEIN is a gem of a book — angry, hilarious, and just plain weird...compulsively so.” — Kevin J. Anderson, New York Times bestselling co-author of HUNTERS OF DUNE
“Warren Ellis writes like a bi-polar Raymond Chandler.” — Kinky Friedman, author of Ten Little Indians
“There’s at least one surprise, laugh, and genius turn of phrase per page here. ” — Myspace Books
“Think Kurt Vonnegut having tea with William Burroughs and a bipolar Raymond Chandler...Ellis takes your breath away.” — Madison County Herald (Mississippi)
“[A] snappily paced homage to William Burroughs’ Naked Lunch.” — Publishers Weekly
“[A] fast-paced and funny read...unforgettable.” — Boise Weekly
“CROOKED LITTLE VEIN is a wild, rambling, funny look at the dark alleys of the American sexual landscape.” — Neal Bohl for Crimespree
“Rich, dark humor and biting look at the world.” — PopMatters.com
A relentlessly fascinating page-turner...brilliantly and effervescently subversive.
[C]ompletely compulsive, impossible to put down.
[A] brilliantly nasty and weird detective novel.
[A] much-needed kick in the butt for a genre that may be more stagnant than its enthusiasts realize.
CROOKED LITTLE VEIN...is a book readers will not soon forget.
Ellis is a formidable talent whose wit and insight fit perfectly into the crime genre.
[M]ay be destined to become one of the great underground classics of the 21st century.
Packed with exciting, hilarious, and disturbing events...outrageously entertaining.
A heart-shredding work of scatological brilliance that gleefully annihilates private-eye tropes and pole-vaults over taste lines.
Ellis is a formidable talent whose wit and insight fit perfectly into the crime genre.
CROOKED LITTLE VEIN...is a book readers will not soon forget.
Stop it. You’re frightening me.
There’s at least one surprise, laugh, and genius turn of phrase per page here.
[A] fast-paced and funny read...unforgettable.
If you’re looking for an antidote to the stifling formulae of genre fiction, this could be your book.
Rich, dark humor and biting look at the world.
Funny, inventive and blithely appalling, this book is Dante on paint fumes.
CROOKED LITTLE VEIN is a gem of a book — angry, hilarious, and just plain weird...compulsively so.
[S]omewhere between the noir of Frank Miller and dark comedy of Chuck Palahniuk.
[L]augh-out-loud funny...a deeply inventive look at the undercurrents beneath the mainstream popular culture.
Think Kurt Vonnegut having tea with William Burroughs and a bipolar Raymond Chandler...Ellis takes your breath away.
Get ready for a wonderful kick in the teeth that’ll make you lick your bloody lip with masochistic joy.
Warren Ellis writes like a bi-polar Raymond Chandler.
So funny you may just laugh out loud.
CROOKED LITTLE VEIN is a wild, rambling, funny look at the dark alleys of the American sexual landscape.
[L]augh-out-loud funny...a deeply inventive look at the undercurrents beneath the mainstream popular culture.
A heart-shredding work of scatological brilliance that gleefully annihilates private-eye tropes and pole-vaults over taste lines.
Product Details
| BN ID: | 2940169613247 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Tantor Audio |
| Publication date: | 11/15/2007 |
| Edition description: | Unabridged |
Read an Excerpt
Crooked Little Vein
A Novel
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. Making a smug huffing sound, it threw itself from the table to the floor, and scuttled back into the hole in the wall where it had spent the last three months planning new ways to screw me around. I'd tried nailing wood over the gap in the wainscot, but it gnawed through it and spat the wet pieces into my shoes. After that, I spiked bait with warfarin, but the poison seemed to somehow cause it to evolve and become a super-rat. I nailed it across the eyes once with a lucky shot with the butt of my gun, but it got up again and shat in my telephone.
I dragged myself all the way awake, lurching forward in my office chair. The stink of rat urine steaming and festering in my mug stabbed me into unwelcome wakefulness, but I'd rather have had coffee. I unstuck my backside from the sweaty leatherette of the chair, fought my way upright, and padded stiff-legged to the bathroom adjacent to my office. I knew that one of these days someone was going to burst into the office unannounced to find a naked private investigator taking a piss with the bathroom door open. There was a time where I cared about that sort of thing. Some time before I started living in my own office, I think.
My suit and shirt were piled on the plastic chair I use for clients. I stole it from a twenty-four-hour diner off Union Square, back in my professional drinking days. I picked up the shirt and sniffed it experimentally. It seemed to me that it'd last another daybefore it had to be washed, although there was a nagging thought at the back of my mind that maybe it actually reeked and my sense of smell was shot. I held up the sleeve and examined the armpit. Slightly yellowish. But then, so was everything else in the office. No one would see it with the jacket on, anyway.
I rifled the jacket for cigarettes, harvested one, and went back to my chair. I swabbed some of the nicotine scum off the window behind the chair with the edge of my hand and peered down at my little piece of Manhattan street.
Gentrification had stopped dead several doors west of my spot overlooking Avenue B. You could actually see the line. That side of the line; Biafran cuisine, sparkling plastic secure window units, women called Imogen and Saffron, men called Josh and Morgan. My side of the line; crack whores, burned-out cars, bullets stuck in door frames, and men called Father-Eating Bastard. It's almost a point of honor to live near a crackhouse, like living in a pre-Rudy Zone, a piece of Old New York.
Across the street from me is the old building that the police sent tanks into, about five years back, to dislodge a community of squatters. The media never covered the guys in the crackhouse down the street a little way, hanging out of their windows, scabs dropping off their faces onto the heads of the rubberneckers down below, cheering the police on for getting those cheapass squatter motherfuckers off their block. You think the tanks ever came for the crackhouse? Did they hell.
I was new there, back then. All tingly with the notion of being a private detective in the big city. I was twenty-five, still all full of having been the child prodigy at the local desk of the main Pinkerton office in Chicago since I was twenty. But I was going to fly solo, do something less corporate and more real, make a difference in lives.
It started going wrong on the second day, when the signpainter inscribing my name on the office door made a mistake and took off before I noticed. To the world at large I am now Michael Mgil Private Invest Gator. . It's always the first line of a consultation. "No, it's McGill."
Some asshole scraped the I out of investigator with their keys six months ago. I simply can't be bothered to fix that one. For all the work I get, I may as well be an invest gator. Every two days, I actually go down to the pay phone on the corner to call my own phone and leave a message on the answering machine to make sure it's all still working.
I don't have a secretary. Sometimes I flip on a phone voice-changer I got for five bucks on eBay and pretend to be my own secretary. It is very sad.
I blew stale-tasting cigarette smoke at the windowglass, looked down at people moving around the street, and debated what to do. I was fairly sure it was Saturday, so I didn't need to be there pretending I had a career. On the downside, I didn't have anywhere else to go. I could have coaxed my old laptop into life and gone on the Web to read about someone else's life, but I feared my email.
Maybe, I thought, it was time to leave the office, go out into the sunlight, and give the hell up.
Kids were playing in the street, which isn't something I ever saw often from my window. I considered, and watched, reaching for my coffee mug by reflex as I idly chased trains of thought around my head.
It occurs to me now that if I hadn't seen the man in black on the far side of the street at that exact second, I would probably still be brushing my teeth with bleach.
But I did. The absolute stereotypical man in black, with the shades and the earpiece and the stone face.
And another, down the street.
I leaned over. A third was outside the door to my building.
Crooked Little VeinA Novel. Copyright © by Warren Ellis. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.
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