Goodreads helps you keep track of books you want to read.

Start by marking “The Best Bad Things” as Want to Read:

The Best Bad Things

by
Katrina Carrasco

Other editions

Rate this book

Clear rating

1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

Open Preview

The Best Bad Things

Katrina Carrasco (Goodreads Author)

4.47 · Rating details · 17 Ratings · 10 Reviews

Alma Rosales is on the hunt for stolen opium. Trained in espionage by the Pinkerton’s Detective Agency—but dismissed for bad behavior and a penchant for going undercover as a man—Alma now works for Delphine Beaumond, her former lover and the seductive mastermind of a West Coast smuggling ring.

When product goes missing at their Washington Territory outpost, Alma is offered ...more

Get A Copy

Or buy for

Published 2018 by MCD/FSG

More Details... edit details

Friend Reviews

To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.

Reader Q&A

To ask other readers questions about The Best Bad Things, please sign up.

Be the first to ask a question about The Best Bad Things

Lists with This Book

Never Dare a Wicked Earl by Renee Ann Miller

A Different Kind of Fire by Suanne Schafer

Authors18

113 books — 153 voters

2017 Pitchwars Mentor Books

150 books — 118 voters

More lists with this book...

Community Reviews

(showing 1-48)

Rating details

Sort: Default

Filter

May 09, 2018 Paul rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

A vivd cast of characters, a strong decisive style, and a burning tension throughout make The Best Bad Things a book I can highly recommend. Alma Rosales is a smart, savvy character who will not be forgotten any time soon. A great debut novel.

Thank you to NetGalley, Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, and Katrina Carrasco for the advanced copy for review.

Full review can be found here: https://paulspicks.blog/2018/05/09/th...

Please check out all my reviews: https://paulspicks.blog

flag 7 likes · Like · see review

Apr 20, 2018 Authentikate rated it really liked it · review of another edition

3.5 Stars

Alma Rosales is a new sort of heroine. She’s smart. She’s brash. She’s a snoop and a spy. She’s daring, sharp-tongued and maybe a little too full of herself. Her self-confidence is both a blessing and a curse as she sets off on high-adrenaline historical fiction suspenseful thrill ride.

A former detective for the notorious Pinkerton agency, Alma, fired but unwilling to give up the hunt, begins her work for a jasmine-dripped woman named Delphine. Alma goes undercover as a man named Jack ...more

flag 2 likes · Like · see review

May 15, 2018 Geonn Cannon rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

This book sounded like it was tailor-made for me. Female Pinkerton agent in pre-statehood Washington (Port Townsend, to be exact), AND she likes the ladies? I've never wanted Netgalley to approve me for a book than this one. It did not disappoint!

While it has a strong mystery plot as the backbone, the real draw of this book is the main character (who is bisexual, as it turns out). Alma is one of the toughest protagonists I've read in a long time. Is Alma good or bad? Is she the law or a criminal ...more

flag 2 likes · Like · see review

May 27, 2018 Jen rated it really liked it

A woman disguised as a man investigating a drug ring with mysteriously disappearing opium disguised takes dedication and a keen intellect in Katrina Carrasco's The Best Bad Things.

To read this, and other book reviews, visit my website: http://makinggoodstories.wordpress.com/.

Alma Rosales, a former Pinkerton detective, is a good investigator who observes minute details and asks probing questions while infiltrating situations as need demands as either a female or, as she often prefers, a male. Emb A woman disguised as a man investigating a drug ring with mysteriously disappearing opium disguised takes dedication and a keen intellect in Katrina Carrasco's The Best Bad Things.

To read this, and other book reviews, visit my website: http://makinggoodstories.wordpress.com/.

Alma Rosales, a former Pinkerton detective, is a good investigator who observes minute details and asks probing questions while infiltrating situations as need demands as either a female or, as she often prefers, a male. Embedding herself into the West Coast drug scene as Jack Camp, Alma aims to uncover who within the operation is stealing opium from her employer and former lover Delphine. Gaining the trust of one of the local bosses proves to be more of a challenge, when her identity as Camp might become compromised, but her quick wit and thirst for violence prove to be an asset. As the search for the culprit closes in, Alma not only has to navigate the corruption of Port Townsend and keep her identity hidden, but she also has to work to keep the incoming Pinkerton agents at bay to prevent a wrench in her well-laid plans.

A tale of vice, excess, and corruption that is presented through jumps in Alma's recollection of her assorted reconnaissance work, current and developing action, and the interrogation of a man in police custody, which paints a more cohesive narrative, though its development doesn't build naturally and rather offers small bits for the reader to cobble together. Alma is an incredibly self-confident (perhaps too much so) and sharp-tongued lead; her ability to handle herself physically against opponents is impressive, and skills in camouflaging herself for the situation prove vital for success. Though the text was a bit heavy-handed and overly detailed on brutality and sexual aggressiveness, it was interesting to see a woman taking liberties with her sexuality and dressing as she wants despite the cultural expectations and customs of the era.

Overall, I'd give it a 3.5 out of 5 stars. ...more

flag Like · see review

May 24, 2018 Sherry Chiger rated it really liked it

This is a book I admired more than loved. A gender-fluid, part-Latinx protagonist on the rough-and-tumble Washington coast during the time of opium smuggling, Pinkerton agents, and the rise of the railroads? Wow. The plot was suitably complex, with lots of ball juggling, and the prose was so vivid. But the overuse, IMO, of sentence fragments wore on me, to the point that I almost gave up reading before the halfway mark, and I felt some of the descriptions could have been pruned to quicken the pa ...more

flag Like · see review

Madeline Dickerson rated it it was amazing
Apr 23, 2018

Jun 17, 2018 Tiffany S rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

To start my review I must say-
I hope Katrina Carrasco makes Alma Rosales the protagonist in at least 5 more books. “The Best Bad Things” was one of those historical fiction books that shows you the underbelly of the world and makes you cringe when you think how far women have come (and how far we have to go). Alma ROCKS to put it lightly. She worked for the Pinkerton Detective Agency but may have been dismissed for some less than stellar things. She finds new work and spends the time straddling ...more

flag Like · see review

Sara Birmingham rated it it was amazing
Apr 06, 2018

DD rated it it was amazing
Apr 11, 2018

Geonn Cannon rated it really liked it
May 14, 2018

Apr 19, 2018 Cristie Underwood rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Amazingly engrossing and well written historical fiction .

flag Like · see review

Katherine rated it liked it
May 21, 2018

May 29, 2018 viktoria marked it as bye-felicias-for-now · review of another edition

Shelves: historical-fiction, netgalley, it-s-not-you-it-s-me-probably, lgbtqiap-plus-hollah, read-in-2018, yay-for-diversity, by-and-about-lgbtqia

DNF @ 25%... for now: I'm going to return to this when I'm more patient, because there are many things about this I'm totally digging—ambivalent af characters with double-edged, shady af motivations, Alma's basic entire essence, bad-ass pansexual WOCs, the whole setting, really—but Alma's narration tends to contain many fractured sentences as she observes things, and while this style makes sense, it was utilized frequently. I found I lost patience with it to the point I wasn't enjoying the book ...more

flag Like · see review

Emily Tillinghast rated it it was amazing
Apr 25, 2018

Jun 25, 2018 dori rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Katrina Carrasco is a GREAT writer when it comes to imagery and character - so much so that despite the slow pace of the storyline so far, the images I've drawn up in my head are pretty spectacular. Your mileage may vary as far as the plot pace, but if you like period pieces that aren't afraid to go places others have not, and if you want to see more queer characters in good writing, you'll enjoy it.

At first I expected this to be a far "sexier" read, but the storyline is fairly slow-moving in t ...more

flag Like · see review

dori rated it it was amazing
May 16, 2018

May 21, 2018 Katherine rated it liked it · review of another edition

This book initially looked like something I would enjoy. However as I started reading it I was confused and thought the date transitions were not helpful. It was not until at least 3/4 or more along that the disparate parts started to come together for me. The characters were fully developed although the main character is confusing and switches genders throughout the book. This story is full of sexual innuendo and brutal sex scenes, both implied and detailed. I finished this book and at the end ...more

flag Like · see review

Clarissa rated it it was amazing
Sep 24, 2017

Sana added it
Jan 29, 2017

Crini added it
Jan 29, 2017

Becki added it
Jan 29, 2017

Holly added it
Jan 29, 2017

Elicia marked it as to-read
Feb 17, 2017

Julie marked it as to-read
May 10, 2017

Ryn Silverstein marked it as to-read
Jun 03, 2017

Kelly marked it as to-read
Jul 10, 2017

Niki marked it as to-read
Jul 14, 2017

Julie Dalton marked it as to-read
Jul 23, 2017

Mariela marked it as to-read
Jul 24, 2017

Katie Frank marked it as to-read
Aug 02, 2017

H. Dair Brown marked it as to-read
Aug 03, 2017

Layne marked it as to-read
Aug 08, 2017

Ella Apollodorus marked it as to-read
Aug 17, 2017

Mercedes Siler marked it as to-read
Aug 21, 2017

Naseem marked it as to-read
Aug 21, 2017

Jess Creaden marked it as to-read
Aug 22, 2017

Kellye marked it as to-read
Sep 03, 2017

Donna marked it as to-read
Sep 03, 2017

Mia Manansala marked it as to-read
Sep 04, 2017

Suanne marked it as to-read
Sep 21, 2017

Kelli marked it as to-read
Sep 21, 2017

Amanda Stauffer marked it as to-read
Sep 21, 2017

Renee marked it as to-read
Sep 21, 2017

Clarissa marked it as to-read
Sep 22, 2017

Kate Day marked it as to-read
Sep 25, 2017

Kaelan Rhywiol marked it as to-read
Sep 25, 2017

Amy Doan marked it as to-read
Sep 28, 2017

Jennifer Klepper marked it as to-read
Sep 29, 2017

new topic
Discuss This Book

There are no discussion topics on this book yet. Be the first to start one »

Recommend It | Stats | Recent Status Updates

Genres

Fiction

5 users

Historical > Historical Fiction

5 users

Mystery

4 users

Historical

4 users

See top shelves…

About Katrina Carrasco

Katrina Carrasco

15 followers

Katrina Carrasco holds an M.F.A. in fiction from Portland State University, where she received the Tom and Phyllis Burnam Graduate Fiction Scholarship and the Tom Doulis Graduate Fiction Writing Award. Her short stories have appeared in Witness, Post Road, Quaint, and other journals, and her nonfiction can be found at Autostraddle. She has been awarded residencies at Yaddo, Blue Mountain Center, I ...more

More about Katrina Carrasco