Broken Frontier

Famed graphic novelist and Internet Jesus Warren Ellis writes his first literary novel, taking a note from the detective template; perverting it on the altar of his deconstructing instincts.

Michael McGill is a burned out private detective who is a magnet for all things weird and sub cultural. He is hired by the White House to flush out the secret second US Constitution as written by the Founders, lost by Nixon. In a whorehouse. Aided by spunky nymphomaniac Trix, he embarks on a cross-country tour of America's seedy underworld in search of the only document that can save America from itself.

For those familiar with Warren Ellis, Crooked little vein can be described as Über-Ellis. He proudly displays all his techno and body modification fetishes for the entire world to see. Doing the opposite of William Gibson - who stops blogging once he has begun writing a new novel - Warren Ellis considers his research to be open source. Everything is posted on warrenellis.com that discloses an interest in various subcultures and technological innovations in communication technology. It is a novel and very in-with-the-times way of writing a novel and that is sure to establish a customer base from the research stadium on. It is also a supreme branding and marketing move, further establishing the Warren Ellis name.

The book falls somewhere between social satire and exploitation. It seems to thrive on shock value coupled with the mesmerizing aspect of sexual perversity. There are scenes involving Godzilla bukkake (if you think I'm giving you a link for this one, think twice), oiled body builders injecting their testicles with saline solutions, necrophilia burglars and many more. It is also maniacally funny. There are times that Ellis goes over the top and you just want to exchange the shock with story content. Ennis tries to keep topping the depravities he comes up with but there are times that you just want him to go ahead with the story. And the story itself is pretty flimsy. It is more about the road getting there than the ending itself and that is a bit of a shame. It could have used more of message. It would have made the book stronger and given it more focus. On the surface it is an outcry for individuality and tolerance but it feels like the dog just needs one more leg in order to properly walk through the door instead of just hitting the frame. He knows where it's at; he just can't seem to get through it. The story ending is a bit of a fizzle and the book turns out to be taken at face value.

Crooked little vein is written in the first-person and that is one of Ellis' strong points. He has a talent for making characters come to life through dialogue and inner monologue. His writing style is very acerbic and witty and hardboiled. The humor is very black and the depraved wanderings of the protagonist are described in glorious detail. His wording is masterful and his witty banter shines and flows. There is rhythm to his writing and there is ingenuity in his wording. His prose is a wonderfully mutated thing, written on a Cronenberg typewriter ghosted by William S. Burroughs and Raymond Chandler. Hilarious and frightening.

It is a small book. The hardcover is 280 pages, printed in a large typeface, broad spacing and contains many intermittent chapter headings. But for what the book is supposed to be about, it is just about right.

Crooked little vein is a junk book about a junk culture. A culture where the underground has become the mainstream and subcultures are commodities. A plate of perversions is thrown before our nose and like our protagonist and its sidekick Trix, we can pick and play and choose whatever fits our fancy. It is a captivating read and it is gory and it is sexual and it is funny as hell.

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Crooked little vein is available in finer bookstores and online stores, released through HarperCollins. You can read a sample chapter online at Warren Ellis' Livejournal account. To whet your appetite even more, here's an extra of the book, provided by HarperCollins. It is called "In The Kitchen with Warren."