Dark Entries by Ian Rankin and Werther Dell’Edera review

Dark Entries, bestselling author Ian Rankin’s stab at a John Constantine story and the second graphic novel available from Vertigo Crime, is a nice little book. It’s got demons and wisecracks and whatever the fuck else you’d expect out of a John Constantine book, I’d imagine (I’ve only seen the shitty fucking Keanu Reeves disaster so I’m no fucking expert on the series, to be sure). So if that’s what you fucking want, fucking have at it, you dorks. Pick it up and get your goblins and ghouls kicks, not my place to judge (though judge I fucking will, naturally).

But is this the direction that your favorite dark crime junkie had in mind for the Vertigo Crime imprint? Not in the fucking least, dear reader.

But before I get into discussing the finer points of this perfectly fine though-not-my-cup-of-black-bitter-coffee book, indulge the Nerd as his narcissistic ass does some soul-searching, some reflecting on his brand and some other such bullshit.

Or don’t. Fucking skip down a few paragraphs – all the same to me. But if you’re still with me, let’s do some good old-fashioned blogger navel-gazing and see what kind of lint chunks and weird smells we can find (now I know I really lost some of your asses).

I have come to the realization that by reading shit with the expectations that they be “hardcore” or “for the basement crazies,” I may be giving short shrift to some really good books. I mean, in how many reviews do I shit on a book because it “pusses out” or doesn’t “go full dark?” Seriously, tally it up for me. I’m a busy man.

Of course, by calling myself the Nerd of Noir I am setting up not only expectations for you the reader, but also perhaps for myself. I mean, if I called myself Crazy For Cozies then I would probably bitch about how there were too many swears and too much on-stage violence in certain quilting and pastry chef mysteries. Or if I were the Mystery Maven, then I would probably discuss how the twist at the end was too predictable or how the plucky detective didn’t have enough zingers to suit my tastes (also, I would probably be updating you on how my hormone treatments were going, seeing how I would apparently be gunning for a sex change toot-sweet).

By the way, if some cozy or mystery lover was looking for a good handle, I just gave your ass some solid ones. You’re fucking welcome. How’d you find this review, by the way? Shit, how’d you read down this far is the real question, I suppose.

But the more I think about this, the stronger my fucking reserve is. I mean, wanting my pulp fiction down and dirty is just who I am, whether I’m going by the Nerd of Noir or Pete Dragovich or my stage persona, Smooth Jazz Sammy (of Smooth Jazz Sammy and the Elevator Five, of course). So wanting my reading material to be badass is just not fucking going away any time soon, and that shit is probably going to forever color my reviews and my reading choices.

The shit I review for your indifferent eyes is shit that I have either heard is badass from other reviewers and authors or shit by authors I know to have done badass shit in the past. So it’s not like I’m tossing a Lillian Jackson Braun onto the TBR pile and saying “Koko and Yum Yum better eat some motherfuckers in this book or it’s getting the review beatdown of its fucking print run!” I have high, specific expectations of my fiction, and when those expectations are not met, a drubbing said fiction shall fucking well receive.

Fucking A, I apologize. Looks like I just gave myself a pep talk/plead a case for my own sad fucking soapbox and wasted everybody’s time. You can’t get those minutes back, dear reader, but if it’s any consolation, I can’t get the many more minutes wasted writing these fucking words back, either, so you’re still ahead.

Let’s review some shit already, waddaya say? What was I talking about earlier? Oh yeah, fucking Dark Entries. Let’s roll.

So John Constantine’s supernatural PI skills are needed to figure out what the fuck is going on with the contestants on Haunted Mansion, the hottest show on TV (Constantine wouldn’t know, he hates television). All the folks on Haunted Mansion are being haunted, as the title promises, but the shit of it is:  none of the scares are due to what the producers have set up to provide said scares. So Constantine joins the cast to see what the hell is going on, locking himself in with the rest of them like he’s on Big Brother. Naturally, it’s quickly revealed that things are not what they seem…

Dark Entries is clever and a quick-as-fuck read. Rankin rails on television (which makes the Nerd want to recite the list of awesome that TV has given the thinking portion of the public over the last few years to him, but this shit is long enough already so I’ll rein it in for once), and Constantine smokes his cigarettes and says funny shit. Once the revelations start raining down, you’re sure as hell impressed, but, honestly, it left me kind of cold.

And that’s because there aren’t really any stakes. I mean, I know that Constantine is a brand in the comics world, so it ain’t like this one-off story is going to kill and damn his ass or anything mind-blowing like that. Plus, it’s supernatural shit – which rarely gets shit below my waistline moving as it is – and not only that, but heaven and hell shit that just seems kind of hokey to me, anyway. I mean, yeah, if you’re supposed to believe in such a reality for a story, damnation and all that shit should be the very highest of stakes, but it never really conveyed that to me. It was just kind of a snarky lark of a story – which I can get behind a little bit – but come on, this Vertigo Crime thing was supposed to be my fantasies fucking realized, you know?

Yes, you knew this rant was a-coming, didn’t you, dear reader? I was hoping that Vertigo Crime was going to be a bunch of shit like Scalped (another DC Vertigo book that is the greatest thing on planet, hands-down) or Criminal (an awesome comic from Marvel Icon) being put out, not a bunch of shit like Preacher or 100 Bullets and the other reality-bending crime-ish shit that Vertigo already delivers week in week out. I mean, what’s the fucking point of having an imprint if you’re just going to do the same shit you’re already doing with the original fucking imprint? Was it just to make my ass buy a bunch of hardcover books with a snazzy little icon on the spine? If that shit was the intent, DC certainly fucking succeeded thus far with the Nerd, so bra-fucking-vo. I mean, they still have a chance to impress my ass in the future, but it fucking looks like there’s more supernatural shit coming down the pike instead of shit like Filthy Rich which, though flawed, at least was something like what I had in mind for the imprint.

Okay *reaches for his meds* I’ve calmed down some. Looking back on this fucking epic I have just shat out, I think we’ve all learned something. Not about the human condition or even anything about literary criticism, but something, regardless. Mainly, that I like me some fucking noir shit (apparently I felt the need to spell that out for a billion fucking paragraphs like you hadn’t figured it out already) and that Dark Entries, though a good book, just doesn’t fit the criteria. But what we’ve truly learned is that Vertigo Crime better start pumping out stuff that gets me, you know, fucking pumped, otherwise…I’ll fire off an impotent rage-filled review…with a shit pile of navel-gazing thrown in for good measure.

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