Harriet Klausner's Review Archive
The rookie Life-Arts editor of the Miltown Register, "Happy Boy" fires reporter Perry Patetick who worked at the paper since graduating college. Already discontented with his life, though he loves and lives with his fiancee, Perry wanders into an S&M shop, Cruel and Unusual. There he receives an invitation to Carn-evil, a party later that same evening where he feels he finally discovers what is lacking in his life and that is not employment.
Perry soon lives two lives, one with his girl friend serving as a façade as he meanders through the world of Dominance and submissive. That journey not only strengthens Perry's inner core, but also leads the submissive to Dominance Karen "Karenina" Pashlust. Perry and Karen fall in love, but she is married to a husband who refuses to free her. When someone murders Karen, the police suspect her submissive Perry killed her in a crime of passion. Perry refuses to quietly submit to the police and begins to make his own inquiries.
D/s is more a powerful personality study into the velvet underground and grayish West St. rather than an amateur sleuth tale. The crisp story line is recreationally paced to add realism and filled with humor to ease the growing sexual tension, awareness and choice. The mystery is standard, but does not slow down this insightful look at a fetish. Not for everyone because there are some graphic moments that augments the authenticity of the plot but Gary S. Kadet provides an original that will excite (figuratively) fans of counterculture character studies.