Dallas 08.20.2009

Law & Order: SLU (Special Lesbians Unit)

Carsen Taite takes readers to the steamy side of justice

When we got our copy of Carsen Taite’s newest novel, It Should Be A Crime, we thought the title referred to us reading another book filled with lesbian sex. To gay men, girl-on-girl action is like science fiction, how-to and horror all rolled into one. It’s strange, scary and people are boldly going places we’ve never gone before and hope to never go.

But to our pleasant surprise, It Should Be A Crime lived up to its name literally a few chapters in (after the requisite Sapphic sex, of course). This book is a legal thriller! Yay! Think of Taite as a “Jane” Grisham of sorts, ready to entertain and intrigue us with her very own Pelican Briefs Panties.

Like all good love stories, this one starts in a dark alley behind a gay bar. Girl meets girl and then several paragraphs of hard nipples, moist nether regions and passionate kisses ensue before getting to the really good stuff.

Morgan Bradley and Parker Casey, who met in said alley, caressed above-referenced nipplage and thought their affair was a limited-time-offer infomercial for wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am-wow!, cross paths once again. Only now things are a little more complicated.

Morgan has just secured a professorship at a Dallas university, and as fate would have it, Parker walks in as her student. Awkward!

But that’s nothing compared to the murder trial in which they find themselves entangled. Secrets are revealed, like Parker’s past occupation, and the tension and attraction mount between the two women as the case gets bigger and bigger.

Taite (aka Teresa Cain) is a real-life attorney – and practicing lesbian – so the prose jumps off the page with authority and authenticity. Dallas locales make this an even more enjoyable read for us because we’re able to truly visualize every place she describes.

This is just Taite’s second novel (she’s now working on her third), but it’s as if she has bookshelves full of bestsellers under her belt.

In fact, she manages to make the courtroom more exciting than Judge Judy bursting into flames while delivering a verdict.

Like this book, that’s something we’d pay to see.

“It Should Be A Crime”
$17, Paperback
www.carsentaite.com

Book signing and reading 7:00 p.m. tonight at Border’s West Village

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