A friend of mine had a suitably disparaging way of summing up the film Crash (the Oscar winning Crash, rather than the weird one about sex and car crashes): ' You know that racism thing?' she said. 'It's complicated.'

But while living in LA I found a different perspective on it. There, people found it spoke to their sense of alienation – of being cut off from the people around them by endless freeways, race and class.

Reading Warren Ellis' take on John Constantine in Hellblazer:  Haunted brings up similar feelings for Londoners. London has always had the support role in Hellblazer comics, but Ellis commits himself to this assumption more than any of his predecessors.  Constantine's musings on the capital eat up substantial portions of the book, with his long shadow casting an ambivalent, cynical shade over the streets he walks.

"My name's John Constantine and here I stay: haunted by London. And London, haunted  by me," he says as he lights another cigarette. Ellis' London is a tragic, brutal place populated by nasty coppers, drug addicts and secret agenda's. No-one comes out of this story particularly well, although Constantine himself is given a more sympathetic hearing than under many other writers. He continues to pressure people into helping him through blackmail and half-truth, but the plot – his attempt to find justice for a murdered ex-girlfriend – pits him as something resembling an out-and-out good guy.

Watford, the policeman Constantine enlists to help him with his case, is an unrepentant nasty bastard with an unpleasant habit of describing murdered women as 'it'. His dialogue is spectacularly well constructed – every sentence further establishing his character. Chas, Constantine's driver, serves for a drop of light relief and a sounding board for exposition, but the two men's relationship still feels overly-convenient.

There's a lot to praise here. The tone is pitch-perfect: dark, haunting and full of fragile desperation. The plot is engaging and it maintains a comfortable, unhurried pace. Some of the scenes really stand out. Constantine suffers a particularly brutal beating half way through the book, the aftermath of which provides one of the very few moments in comics where the reality of violence is fully brought home. The climax of the story is harsh, memorable and satisfying.

John Higgins' art is unfussy anlanced with the script. The background details of London ring spectacularly true, but he really comes into his own drawing Constantine himself; his  detached gaze, trademark coat and cigarette smoke blending in effortlessly with the story.

If there are any complaint, it's about the level of violence, despite the fact most of it happens 'off-camera'. The description his ex-girlfriend's murder is overly appalling, overlong and slightly voyeuristic. The sheer level of  depravity in London is overstated and frankly, unrealistic.

If you're a Hellblazer fan this is excellent, quintessential Constantine you won't want to go without. If you're not, this is as good a jumping-on point as any. There's little reason to start at the beginning with Hellblazer, it's not that sort of series. Pick up Haunted, and you'll have a good idea if it's for you. Finally, if you're a Londoner, comic reader or not, Constantine haunts your city. Find out about him before he finds out about you.

8/10