**Finalist for the Washington State Book Award and the Lambda Award in Bisexual Fiction** “Sexy, fun, serious and unputdownable.” –Bethanne Patrick, The Washington Post “Brazen, brawny, sexy . . . full of unforgettable characters and insatiable appetites. I was riveted. Painstakingly researched and pulsing with adrenaline, Carrasco’s debut will leave you thirsty for more.” –Lyndsay Faye, … thirsty for more.” –Lyndsay Faye, author of The Gods of Gotham
A vivid, sexy barn burner of a historical crime novel, The Best Bad Things introduces readers to the fiery Alma Rosales–detective, smuggler, spy
It is 1887, and Alma Rosales is on the hunt for stolen opium. Trained in espionage by the Pinkerton Detective Agency–but dismissed for bad behavior and a penchant for going undercover as a man–Alma now works for Delphine Beaumond, the seductive mastermind of a West Coast smuggling ring.
When product goes missing at their Washington Territory outpost, Alma is tasked with tracking the thief and recovering the drugs. In disguise as the scrappy dockworker Jack Camp, this should be easy–once she muscles her way into the local organization, wins the trust of the magnetic local boss and his boys, discovers the turncoat, and keeps them all from uncovering her secrets. All this, while sending coded dispatches to the circling Pinkerton agents to keep them from closing in.
Alma’s enjoying her dangerous game of shifting identities and double crosses as she fights for a promotion and an invitation back into Delphine’s bed. But it’s getting harder and harder to keep her cover stories straight and to know whom to trust. One wrong move and she could be unmasked: as a woman, as a traitor, or as a spy.
A propulsive, sensual tour de force, The Best Bad Things introduces Katrina Carrasco, a bold new voice in crime fiction.
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A vibrant and compulsive read; in Alma Rosales, Katrina Carrasco has created a gender-bending heroine who is impossible to forget. The Best Bad Things packs a massive punch and succeeds in queering the crime genre
Gritty street fiction set in the lawless past when Port Townsend was the Deadwood of the Pacific Northwest, Katrina Carrasco’s The Best Bad Things is a bloody brawl of a book. Carrasco uses a whippy structure and flexible prose to play an unsettling shell game as Alma, dressed as Jack, sheds her impulse control along with her corsets, and the plot accelerates into a visceral, unexpected underworld of bare-knuckle fighting, opium smuggling, and genderqueer lust.
HOLY SHIT! I nearly chipped a tooth on the opening paragraph of this book and choked to death. Katrina Carrasco is a powerful writer, her prose as sharp as a Hattori Hanzo sword from Kill Bill, with one badass female protagonist, Alma, a detective who is kicking ass and taking names in a world of power-hungry men and women smuggling opium, trying to stay one step ahead of them while balancing her physical attraction to the ringleader. But be warned, you may need a trip to the dentist after reading this amazing debut!
Rating: 4.5 stars
This book is bursting with personality. You know when an author merely tells a story with their writing? In The Best Bad Things, Carrasco’s writing is the story.
This book is fierce, loud, and unforgettable. The characters are not cardboard cutouts. Our main character (Alma) is a sexually driven, bisexual, hispanic, kick ass, heroine that defies ALL molds set for women in historical fictions. We have Delphine, a beautifully mysterious Head of All Operations, all around boss without losing any of the femininity. She’s a very good balance beam for Alma, because I love authors who incorporate that you don’t have to lose your femininity to be badass. We have Wheeler, a strong, stubborn, and quite frankly unpredictable man that always leaves you on your toes.
The writing, as I’ve established, is stunning. It will literally time travel you to this new, dangerous, underground world engaging all five senses at all times.
Why didn’t I give this book a whole whooping 5 out of 5? Because the plot was a spider web; there were a lot of moments where I became lost. The author introduces a lot of names, and a lot of strings are getting pulled, and the McManuses and Clays and Kopps and all of them all started to get jumbled up in my head. I think by the 80% mark I was just reading it for the characters because I had no idea what the heck was going on.
There are a lot of loosely based sub plots going on, and then one main plot, and every plot conspires of different people . It becomes kind of just a hot mess. The story line really isn’t a walk in the park to follow, and I think to fully understand what was going on I would need to read it a second time. There are so many details in this story that it’s so hard to keep track of all of them.
I think I might go back and read it a second time and update this review for my second run through.
Despite this, I would highly recommend this story. It really is quite different from anything I’ve ever read before. And if you’re into spider web plots, you’ll love it even more than I did.
A brazen, brawny, sexy standout of a historical thrill ride, The Best Bad Things is full of unforgettable characters and insatiable appetites. I was riveted. Painstakingly researched and pulsing with adrenaline, Carrasco’s debut will leave you thirsty for more.
The Best Bad Things by Katrina Carrasco is an historical crime novel taking place in the late 1880’s in Port Townsend, Washington, at the time vying with San Francisco as the busiest port in the Northwest. It tells the story of Alma Rosales, an opium smuggler, who works for Delphine, the “boss” in the Northwest opium trade. Alma is working “undercover” to prove herself to her boss. The fact that puts an interesting spin on the whole thing is that she works undercover as a man, mostly, …and does it well.
No one can be trusted. Carrasco makes the reader absorb the truth of this reality. People die. Lots of them. Some deserving, some not. She does a fabulous job of keeping the read guessing. It’s hard to know who’s who and who is the bad guy. This is fiction but based in reality. The opium trade was huge in this area at the time and the traders spun off into sidelines of smuggling people into the country and such. Carrasco refers to this without making a big deal of it.
This book is a little out of the wheelhouse for me. I enjoyed it. I never knew hat was coming next and I didn’t see the finale until I was there. That is always a good thing. I recommend you give it a try.
I received a free ARC of this book in exchange for a fair and honest review. #netgalley