It's hard not to imagine the inspiration for this book coming on less like a lightbulb going on and more like some sort of brain aneurysm. Even for Grant Morrison, a hard-boiled, brutal, sordid and degraded crime character suddenly visited by a child's imaginary friend with the appearance of a blue horse with feathers is a bit wtf.

Nick Sax, ex-cop, current killer-for-hire kills a bunch of people and then has a heart attack or a stroke or some horrible thing, ending up in hospital and visited by cops and torturers and a blue horse called Happy who desperately needs him to get up and save Hailey, the girl whose imaginary friend Happy is. Hailey and some other children have been kidnapped by a horrific pervert monster Santa Claus and the clock is running out, but Nick is being chased by gangsters and torturers because he killed the wrong person and may hold a password that unlocks a fat bank account. Murder and bloody mayhem and bad langiuage and sleaze and drugs and horror are the stuff Nick wades through with Happy as his cheerful, if slightly desperate guide, trying to persuade Nick that he's real and to go save Hailey.

It's appalling. And brilliant. And funny. And I feel slightly guilty and unclean for having enjoyed it. But in a good way? I think this makes me a bad person now.