An NC-17 Book for an NC-17 Blog....and a Giveaway!

OK....first let me apologize. I was supposed to have this review up yesterday. BUT, I went to see a movie instead. Live Free or Die Hard....and man did it rock! Don't be mad! It was Bruce Willis, what can I say!!

Crooked Little Vein by Warren Ellis (277 pgs) was sent to me by Harper Collins for review. It is Ellis' first novel, although he is known in the literary world as the creator of a couple of DC Comics.

I opened my eyes to see the rat taking a piss in my coffee. 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.

From the first paragraph of this book, you know you are going to be in for a wild ride. Mike McGill, once super-agent for the Pinkerton Agency, is a Private Investigator in New York City. His biggest problem, aside from only have $3 in his checking account, is his terrorizing rat. That is, until the heroin-addicted Chief of Staff to the President of the United States walks into his office. He is being asked to help the government on a mission. To retrieve the Constitution of the United States. Oh, but not the Constitution we know about. Oh no. That would be too easy. This constitution was a secret document that was privately authored by a few of the founders. It was a hand-written document that had 23 invisible amendments that detailed the real intent the founders had on the design of the American public. Oh yeah. It was supposedly bound in the skin of an extraterrestrial entity that "plagued the ass of Ben Franklin for over 6 nights on his travels of Europe".

Since Mike is a reputed "shit-magnet", this assignment seems to right up his alley, although he is a little reluctant to take the job.....like he has a say in this matter. $500,000 is the pay, and it's transferred to his bank account immediately. All he has to do is find this document that was lost in the 1950's when Nixon traded it for favors of a Chinese woman in San Francisco. How hard can that be, right??

When I said wild ride, I meant it! As Mike and his new pal Trix, travel a "crooked little vein" across the country, we meet some of the most unique and probably the sickest cast of characters ever to grace the pages of fiction. Apparently I'm a very Vanilla person, because these people are just down-right nuts! From the Null group in NYC (that would be National Union of Lizard Lovers who have a seriously warped Lizard Fetish) all the way to LA and the Pirates of the Pacific (who are too sick for me to even describe in this blog!) we see perverts in all shapes and sizes. And even a 70-year-old serial killer who is ready to sue for libel by being labeled a "virgin". This book is certainly not for everyone. Definitely not for the faint at heart. But if you like adventure and action, the kind that the graphic novel will give, this book might be just for you. It's a quick-read and definitely one I am glad to have had the pleasure to review. 4/5

Since this book was sent to me by the publisher, I thought I would pass it on to someone else. It's a softcover ARC. If you are interested in it, just leave me a comment. Sometime on Sunday I will draw a name and pass it on!

Later!