Cover Image: The Best Bad Things

The Best Bad Things

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Member Reviews

I have to admit I struggled a bit with this book. I found it confusing, violent and just not for me. I liked the premise and certainly am drawn to strong female characters, but Alma was an odd combination of characters and I just didn’t like her.

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I was intrigued by this book because espionage sounding antics, during the opium high, with a gender-fluid non-white lead, and LGBT romances. What I wasn't expecting was that the book was going to be so violent and gory - not that it's a bad thing! Just wasn't what I was expecting when I was looking through Netgalley.

Overall, it is an enjoyable albeit dark debut novel. And I love that it is US based rather than in Europe - especially London. America had an opium problem as well in the 1800s and early 1900s that definitely has been swept under the rugs since, and books like these are needed to bring light to what happened.

Carrasco captures the time period in a surprising way for a debut author. I was a little hesitant once I realized she was a debut author, but I cannot wait to see what she does next.

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This book started out slow, and it took a lot of effort to keep coming back to it. The character seemed interesting, but it was just too much work to get the story out. The story was also a bit "extra" with Alma having so much going on.

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The lead character is very interesting and the writing good (albeit a little slow) but overall it is just too dark for me to enjoy reading it.

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Well, this was a surprise! Alma is a tough woman- she was fired from Pinkerton and now she's working for a drug smuggling ring trying to find stolen opium. Port Townsend Washington is rough and gritty and not the place one would expect a woman to sleuth so she goes undercover as Jack Camp. There's a lot of action as she makes her way among the bad guys. Delphine, her former lover and current employer, is not one you want to cross either. This was an interesting read largely because it turns the expected on its head. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. For fans of historical fiction looking for something different.

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I was so excited to read this one, but it really ended up being a let down for me! I couldn't finish it. I found the writing really dense and dry and I was just so bored. Apparently fighting and opium smuggling are not my thing. A lot of people clearly had a much better experience, so I'd say give it a try if the blurb sounds interesting, but this one was just not for me.

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I received this from netgalley.com in exchange for a review.

Alma Rosales is searching for stolen opium. Shifting between a lady and her male persona Jack Camp, she lies, cheats and kills to find what she is looking for.

It was an effort to get through this, having to read over the previous pages to keep track of the story. The writing was okay, but the story and its characters were a struggle to follow.

2☆

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Alma Rosales is one of the most complicated female characters I’ve seen in a very long time. She’s a Pinkerton detective, she’s a black tar heroin smuggler and spy, and she’s bisexual; living part of her life as Alma, and the majority of it as ‘Camp’, a rough and tumble, ready to fight to the death. She’s fiercely attracted to Delphine, a long-time confidant and lover who poses as a wealthy widow and is the head of the drug smuggling trade. She’s also attracted to her second in command, Wheeler who also is aware that she is a woman though her time with him is spent as Camp. And then there is the lovely Nell, a lovely ‘lady of the night’ that accepts Alma in all her forms.
Alma/Camp’s world is dangerous and there the plans that Delphine has in place to dominate the up and coming drug trade are complicated and it is nearly impossible to tell who can be trusted and who cannot. It’s fascinating to watch the drama unfold and follow the tension that builds sexually and competitively between the opposing drug runners, the Pinkerton agents waiting in the wings and the key players involved. And Alma is fascinating as her womanly self as well as the fearless, cocky and brilliantly crafty Camp, whose deviousness and fearlessness seems to know no bounds. Fast paced and fantastic!

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Alma Rosales is a former Pinkerton spy who was dismissed from the agency for being a rogue and for going undercover as Jack Camp. As the book opens, Alma is looking for a treasure trove of opium that has gone missing. She needs to find out who’s stolen it, who turned on the owner of the drugs, and how to keep her secrets secret. In the meantime, she’s also sending messages to Pinkerton agents to keep them from blowing her case and her identity. She is, however, having trouble not blowing her own cover.

The book starts off slowly, but quickly picks up momentum and, at breakneck speed, heads toward the end. There are enough twists and turns along the way to keep a reader turning pages into the wee hours of the morning.

Carrasco’s real strength lies in her ability to evoke the period. Her stellar descriptions of place and time conjure up smells, grittiness, and sights that could only be found in a frontier town like Port Townsend in the 1880s. She is less adept at character development, though. Her writing is so well done, it will keep you reading even if you lose interest or don’t like the characters.

This debut feels like it’s the start of the series featuring Alma Rosales. If so, sign me up for book two.

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Let's get one thing straight right off the bat: This is not a fluffy book.

Sure, it' s got gratuitous violence, opium smuggling, a steamy will they/won't they sub plot, and a bisexual main character who is a former lady-detective turned cross-dressing crime ring fixer.

Don't be fooled! This is really historical fiction with a side of mayhem!

The world of 1887 Port Townsend is rendered in perfect detail, the opium ring smuggling operation is complex and dangerous and only Alma Rosales, undercover as "Jack Camp" can get to the bottom of it!

I would recommend this book to folks who like historical fiction but wish it had a lot more bare knuckle fights and opium dens.

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<b>Rating: 4.5 stars</b>

This book is bursting with personality. You know when an author merely <i>tells</i> a story with their writing? In The Best Bad Things, Carrasco's writing <i>is</i> 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.

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So, I’m a fan of mysteries and historical fiction. The idea of a mystery taking place in the 1880s sounded right up my alley. Add in a female protagonist and I was all set to like it. Unfortunately, it didn’t engage me the way I hoped. The writing was as dense as pea soup.

Alma Rosales goes undercover as a man to find who is stealing opium from her boss, Delphine, who is also her former lover. But I really didn’t take an interest in Alma. I had trouble buying into her ability to pose as a man. She came across as two dimensional. In fact, all of the characters came across that way. There’s lots of two timing here, everyone trying to get a leg up on everyone else. There’s not a good soul in the book, everyone can be bought or turned. Character development has been sacrificed for a racing plot, with action on every page.

Carrasco does a good job in giving you a sense of the time and place. I did appreciate that the book is based on Port Townsend’s real problem as a smuggling hot spot. It was a violent time and place and Carrasco captures that violence in all its goriness. This is not a book for the faint of heart.

My thanks to netgalley and Farrah, Strout and Giroux for an advance copy of this book.

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This historical fiction takes place in the 1880's in West Coast United States. Townend is a main port for the opium trade and Alma Rosales, disguised as Jack Camp infiltrates the local dealers. Her goal is to find out who is stealing from Delphine, her former lover and head of the opium trading industry.

Alma uses disguises, murder, and instincts to navigate her way and untangle herself from some very dangerous situations, The tone and the atmosphere of this book are very strong- the book is very dark. However, there is also a lot of violence that left me feeling physically uncomfortable which is something I never like to feel while I am reading.

The plot is very complicated and for me wasn't very compelling. Unfortunately, I had a hard time getting invested in the story. While I usually love historical fiction, I had a harder time with this book. It may be the western element that is swaying my decision and likely due to my preferences as a reader rather than Carrasco as a writer.

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A historical novel with a touch of noir, The Best Bad Things follows Alma Rosales, a shamed ex-Pinkerton agent looking to redeem herself. Her stealth and espionage skills lead her to a job with her ex-lover Delphine. Dressed as her alter-ego, Jack Camp, she infiltrates Delphine’s opium smuggling ring to find out where her missing product has been going.

Working to gain the trust of the boss, Nathaniel, leads Alma/Jack down a twisting path of double-crossers, secrets, and lies which she must navigate without letting anyone uncover her own secrets and her true identity.

This book is a difficult one to review, mostly because I’m still not sure if I enjoyed it or not. The writing is amazing. There’s no doubt about the fact that Katrina Carrasco can write.

It’s vivid and brings you right onto the dirty streets of Port Townsend in the 1800s. Every word and every sentence perfectly evokes the atmosphere. As a reader, you can see the streets perfectly, smell the odours, and hear the sounds of the port. Every sense is used to bring you into the story.

But with such fantastic writing, I hoped that the plot and characters would have been a bit stronger. The plot is quite dense and can be difficult to keep up with at times. I found it confusing trying to remember who each character was and who they were working for. It’s definitely the kind of book you need to pay attention to, so don’t try to read it if you’re looking for something light.

I found that I wasn’t interested in a lot of the characters, either. We don’t get a lot of information about many of them. There are so many background characters that they all sort of become caricatures of dock workers and smugglers rather than fully developed characters.

Even Delphine, who is one of the main characters, seems to be a sort of ethereal woman who glides in and out of the story when it suits, instead of being an actual person.

That being said, Alma is a brilliant character. She’s strong, feisty, and doesn’t take shit from anyone. It’s not often you get a historical novel with such a fierce female lead, so it’s definitely refreshing. And to top it all off, she’s bisexual and doesn’t shy away from it. She is absolutely the redeeming force of this novel.

The Best Bad Things is a historical novel with a bit of oomph. If you like your female leads sassy and your plot meaty, then definitely give this book a go.

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Kept having to force myself to pick it back up and continue. Just didn’t grab my attention, so I finally gave up at 21%. Too drawn out and confusing for me.

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The Best Bad Things follows Alma Rosales, a gender-fluid, half Mexican, bisexual Pinkerton agent in the late 1880s in Port Townsend, Washington. Alma, working undercover for her former-lover-turned-boss, infiltrates the local drug outpost disguised as a male dockworker in the hunt for stolen opium from a West Coast smuggling ring.

this book is not for everyone. i’m not even sure it was for me but i really can’t think of another word that fully encapsulates my feelings for this book other than BOLD. The Best Bad Things is an absolute masterpiece in terms of atmosphere and ambience. Katrina Carrasco’s sharp, beautifully detailed writing style pulls you into this setting that feels incredibly vivid, almost tangible. it evokes this extremely particular feeling, and does so perfectly. i’ll admit this book even made me open up a new playlist so i could put together some songs that would match the precise ambience this book conjures, it’s such an exclusive and rare thing nowadays to find writing that absolutely transcends and leaps off the pages like this one does. i don’t even know how to explain just exactly how amazing Katrina Carrasco’s writing is. Alma herself is one of the most refreshing main characters i’ve had the pleasure to read in a very long time. she’s tough and she’s bisexual and she’s latina and she’s just brilliant. Katrina Carrasco is BRILLIANT.

my one and only issue with The Best Bad Things is that, unfortunately, i don’t think the plot itself was necessarily the most compelling thing about the book. i wasn’t particularly interested in it. this sucks, obviously, and i do love historical fiction so i really don’t know what went wrong here. the plot, in my opinion, was dense at best. hard to keep up with. dragged a little. this probably has to do more with me as a reader than with the book or the author, but this book is definitely not an easy ride. it dragged the book down for me but i think it’s absolutely a worthy read for the writing alone. it really is tough to find a book that completely envelops you to the very core in its essence and atmosphere. Katrina Carrasco really is dauntingly terrific. thanks again to NetGalley and Farrar, Straus and Giroux!!

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This was an exciting book that kept me guessing. Rosales is a chameleon of a protagonist that is one of the most memorable in recent memory. The fight scenes are exquisitely detailed to the point that it made me wince in pain a few times . I'm looking forward to more of this author's work.

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Washinton Territory, 1887: Alma Rosales has been dismissed from the Pinkerton's Detective Agency for her questionable behavior and after a brief stint in California as a PI, she's working for her former lover Delphine, the head of an opium smuggling ring.

Disguised as a man named Jack Camp, Rosales infiltrates the local organization on the docks of Port Townsend to discover who has been stealing product from Delphine.  
She manages to earn the trust of the crew and their boss, Nathaniel Wheeler, who is discreetly moving Delphine's product along the West coast.

Rosales has a bad habit of putting herself into dangerous situations:  dressing as a man and chasing after women are only two of the habits that could get her killed.  She's also sending coded messages to Pinkerton's agents with details on the smuggling operations.
One wrong move and the many identities she has carefully created to suit her motives could topple the flimsy house of cards built on deception.

The Best Bad Things seriously kept me on my toes!  It can get confusing as it jumps back and forth over a short period of time, only revealing particular details to the plot when the author is ready to show her hand.  There are also several subplots that run the course of the novel, only making sense toward the end.

Overall, the plot was brilliantly constructed with several twists and motives that remain unclear for a while, causing you to wonder where exactly our main character's loyalty truly lies.  The many deceptions Rosales juggles makes for intense action and drama.

Alma Rosales is a refreshing female protagonist in a genre traditionally centered entirely around male characters.  She's clever, confident, strong, and sexually charged in a time period when all of these traits were shocking and inappropriate for women.

While the primary plot and its subplots eventually come together in a clever execution, the order in which its told can be confusing or frustrating at times.  There were several inessential scenes and descriptions that didn't really add to the development of the characters or their story.  I'll warn readers there are gratuitous sexual scenes as well (some containing violence), though I found them to be well written and actually adding insight into Rosales behavior and gender fluidity.

A Western-ish/noir-ish/historical fiction crime drama featuring a complex female protagonist who leaves us guessing at every turn, The Best Bad Things is an impressive debut with an original spin on a genre mash up.

Thanks to Farrar, Straus and Giroux and NetGalley for providing me with a digital ARC in exchange for my honest review.  The Best Bad Things is scheduled for release on November 6, 2018.

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This book started off with a bang and I remember thinking, "Oh man...this is going to be an awesome book." Sadly though, for me personally, things started to go downhill shortly thereafter and I could barely sustain enough interest to finish it.

To be clear, I don't think this is necessarily a BAD book. There is some very solid writing in here. I think it just wasn't a match for me.

The book does have a damn fine opening though. Lots of action and Alma/Jack is an intriguing lead character. I loved reading about her approach to gender roles and I thought there was great, complex sexual tension between her and other characters because of it.

The thing that was problematic for me personally was the plot was dense with characters and their various plans, backstabbing, and double crossing. At times it felt like a lot to wade though. I also felt like as a result, interpersonal relationships (and at times even compelling action scenes) got the short shift in favor of more exposition and plot maneuvers. Ultimately it dragged the book down for me.

Thanks to the author and NetGalley for granting me the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

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I was really excited when I read the description for this book. A female Pinkerton agent, sent undercover into the opium trade sounded right up my alley. I have to say, I was a little disappointed. I couldn't get behind the character of Alma Rosales. For me she didn't elicit any kind of connection. The writing was also a bit off for me as well. The in between chapters with the prisoner interview, meant to provide foreshadowing and context, ended up just being confusing. Thanks to NetGalley for providing an ARC for review.

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