Rough Trade

The Best Bad Things #2

by Katrina Carrasco

WINNER: Washington State Book Award
WINNER: Lambda Literary Award, LGBTQ+ Mystery
Finalist: Edgar Award Best Novel
New Yorker Best Books We've Read in 2024 Pick | New York Times Best Crime Novels of the Year | Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2024

Washington Territory, 1888. With contacts on the docks and in the railroad, and with a buyers’ market funneling product their way, Alma Rosales and her opium-smuggling crew are making a fortune. They spend their days moving product and their nights at the Monte Carlo, the center of Tacoma’s queer scene, where skirts and trousers don’t signify and everyone’s free to suit themselves.

Then two local men end up dead, with all signs pointing to the opium trade, and a botched effort to disappear the bodies draws lawmen to town. Alma scrambles to keep them away from her operation but is distracted by the surprise appearance of Bess Spencer—an ex-Pinkerton's agent and Alma’s first love—after years of silence. A handsome young stranger comes to town, too, and falls into an affair with one of Alma's crewmen. When he starts asking questions about opium, Alma begins to suspect she’s welcomed a spy into her inner circle, and is forced to consider how far she’ll go to protect her trade.

Katrina Carrasco plunges readers into the vivid, rough-and-tumble world of the late-1800s Pacific Northwest in this genre- and gender-blurring novel. Rough Trade follows Carrasco’s critically acclaimed debut The Best Bad Things and reimagines queer communities, the turbulent early days of modern media and medicine, and the pleasures—and price—of satisfying desire.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, Queer, LGBT, Mystery, Historical, Mystery Thriller

384 pages, Hardcover

First published April 9, 2024

About the author

Katrina Carrasco's debut novel, THE BEST BAD THINGS (2018, MCD/Farrar, Straus & Giroux), was a finalist in the Lambda Literary Awards and Washington State Book Awards, and won the Shamus Award for Best First P.I. Novel. It was also a 2018 A.V. Club Favorite Book, Buzzfeed Best Thriller, and Vulture Best Crime Book.

Her second novel, ROUGH TRADE (MCD/FSG), was published in April 2024. ROUGH TRADE was a New Yorker Best Books We've Read in 2024 pick, a New York Times Best Crime Novels of the Year 2024 pick, and a Publishers Weekly Best Books of 2024 pick. ROUGH TRADE was also a 2025 Edgar Award Best Novel finalist, and won the Washington State Book Award and a Lambda Literary Award.

Katrina's short stories and essays have appeared in Witness, Post Road, Literary Hub, and other outlets. She has received support from the Corporation of Yaddo, Jentel Arts, I-Park Foundation, Blue Mountain Center, Willapa Bay AiR, Mineral School, Lighthouse Works, the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts, Storyknife Writers Retreat, Artist Trust, and other residencies and foundations.

Reviews

[Rose]

Went method reading this. Joined a union, started smoking and now I work on the docks

[CaseyTheCanadianLesbrarian · Rating 4 out of 5]

This incredibly atmospheric, historical setting is really brought to life. The morally grey characters are a bit hard for me to root for and it is slow paced until the last quarter, where it really picks up. It's got a very interesting and nuanced take on gender fluidity and queer identity in a working class historical setting.

"I fall so deep into Camp, the Alma part of me feels far away"

Great ending!

[Nathaniel]

Unfair to rate a book that I had no business reading. Truly not my genre or my interests, but those queers certainly seemed to have fun!

[Geonn Cannon · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved the first book, but I was still wary because earlier this year I read a follow-up to a different book I loved that was just awful. So I was worried the same thing might happen here. I didn't really see the need for another installment. But I gave the author a chance, and I'm glad I did. A worthy successor to a great book.

[Hal Schrieve · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you, like me, enjoy lovable but dangerous criminal queers, rowdy waterfronts, union men, and a plot so furiously vigorous that your brain keeps returning to worry at it until you pick up the book again, this is your book. I wish that more mystery novels were on the side of the criminal; this one is, and it also is radiant on the level of prose and craft. It does help that it's set very close to where I grew up and helps me squint through the mists of history to find a queer path there.

This is the second book in a duology (and oh, I pray a trilogy or longer) about genderfluid/passing woman Jack Camp/Alma Rosales, an ex-Pinkerton agent who has long since migrated to the sticky side of the law and immersed themself (I will henceforth use he/she interchangeably) in the opium trade in the Salish Sea/Puget Sound in the 1880s-90s. The first book, The Best Bad Things, is set in Port Townsend, and features Camp as a rough and impulsive upstart, trying to break into and control the booming opium smuggling market in the small but fast-growing lumber town on the tip of the Olympic Peninsula. While Best Bad Things is great fun, in no small part because Jack keeps fucking with people just for fun and getting in a lot of trouble, I like Jack in Rough Trade better (and I read the sequel first). In this sequel, Jack has been through some things and recognized the value of community or family; s/he is tough, wise, and careful, a protective if sometimes violent father figure for a largely queer boys-crew of union stevedores in Tacoma, trying to keep her men safe as the cops close in on their opium ring after a series of bodies surface in the bay. Jack cuts a sexy, provocative figure I can either look at as a butch woman or trans man, whose life very much resembles the real, somewhat later, PNW trans criminal figure Harry Allen. She fucks men as a man and women as a woman. Her primary lesbian relationship is with the rich, New Orleans derived madame running things from the top down; her subservient sexual dynamic with her boss is hot-cold and exciting. Meanwhile, the brotherly stone-butch fumblings Jack gets up to in rough wood-floor saloons mark her as queer, like her boys, but don't leave her vulnerable. There's a combo of SBB-style romantics about the lonely, troubled, bound-chest life of the ancient mariner butch and hot, brutal living physicality in Jack. What a beautiful queer hero for a criminal age.

Complicating the scene is a shy, closeted journalist from Portland Oregon determined to sell the secret of the opium trade to a Hearst paper. However, when he starts falling in love with one of Jack's stevedores, things get messy. The sex scenes here are remarkably good--much more frequent and more full of gay guys, on the whole, than the first book Best Bad Things' sex scenes, which are oriented on lesbian yearning and straight men turned on by women in men's clothes (though there's a fair bit of electricity between the aging Nathaniel Wheeler and Jack in that book that I like). Our little journo doesn't really know what he wants, and in his ambiguity, he is satisfyingly swept by criminal tides towards a life on the sides of our tar-moving queer stevedores. Not to spoil things.


The research here is just incredible--for the first book, Carrasco used real insurance maps and newspapers to populate and detail the town. Having just read some books about early PNW, including Native Seattle and The Port of Missing Men, this book fits in neatly, with records of timber men and gold hunters, unions and union busters, brawls and brutality and sham doctors preying on poor men. The main thing missing is many indigenous people, which, having read Native Seattle, probably ought to turn up just a few more times, since the book is set during the period when Duwamish, occasional Tlingit, and Nu-cha-nulth people still seasonally camped near Seattle, though perhaps Carrasco doesn't want to directly write her white/mixed-race characters embodying the brutal racism of the times. Chinese families run the drug trade out of San Francisco through middlemen, which is realistic, and the rail barons rule the roost and control the law, also probably accurate. The glamorous lady in charge of the waterfront is Louisiana Creole, with markedly darker skin than other women of the area. Two characters are mixed Latino (Alma's half Mexican) ancestry, which does track with labor patterns of the period.

The relevance to today also comes with the tension of depicting a queer community both economically dependent on and hurt by drugs. Pushed to the edges of the law partly by economic circumstances and partly by gender marginalization, Alma's crew is vulnerable to overdoses and abusive quack doctors; while she plies the opium trade, her friends also struggle with addiction, and she genuinely cares about them and wants to protect them. This part of the book shows a continuity in the problems and on-the-ground solutions and care work of people in desperate circumstances. I really, really, like how it comes off. I am so excited for Katrina Carrasco to write more.

[Cristina · Rating 4 out of 5]

I just learned this is the second in a series about Alma Rosales, a cross-dressing dock worker boss of a crew of rough men in the late 1800s Tacoma, WA. I think part of my problem with this book was a little confusion with the characters and their relationships, and that may have been solved with reading the first book first. As Jack Camp, Alma is working for Delphine, the big boss lady of the opium smuggling (and other nefarious business?). The two have a physical relationship, but Delphine has a husband somewhere, and they're not exactly sweet to each other. But the story is fun and complex and all about the many players in the scheme from the Chinese producing the opium, to the crooked lawmen and political leaders, to bar owners, and ship and dock laborers. Alma is a cutting-edge example of early queers and Tacoma's gay bar scene is intriguing. The concept is great and the writing was good and moved along. The reader of the audio book led to more confusion with barely changing voices of Alma and Bess, her former Pinkerton Detectives buddy who comes back to further complicate the plot. I'd read more by this author and would also read another in the series if there is one to come.

[Madelyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.25 stars

Thank you to NetGalley and MCD for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I really enjoyed this story! I did not read the first story, not knowing there was one, but it was very easy to follow and it felt like I was given a good deal of information about Alma/Jack. I did not feel confused or wonder how things fit into the story.

There was so much tension with the murder mystery and drug trade in this book! I had no idea how everything would turn out, and I wanted to continue reading to figure out what the conclusion was. There was also a ton of sexual tension between the characters, which felt so palpable! I really enjoyed all of the queer representation, especially getting both Alma’s POV and Ben’s. Alma was a badass and I could’ve continued reading her POV! I’m interested in picking up the first book now!

CW: blood, violence, murder, drug use, sexual content, homophobia, drug trafficking, death, injury/injury detail

[Trio · Rating 3 out of 5]

Katrina Carrasco's Rough Trade is technically a sequel to The Best Bad Things, though both novels can definitely stand alone.

Set in the 19th Century, Carrasco's world is filled with interesting characters and a ton of drama. The plot is complex.

The audio version of Rough Trade is nicely performed by Stacy Gonzalez.

an audiobook copy of Rough Trade was provided by HighBridge Audio, via NetGalley, for the purpose of my honest review, all opinions are my own

[Philip Shecter · Rating 5 out of 5]

A thoroughly enjoyable, tightly-plotted novel about opium smuggling, queer stevedores, and murder in the 1880s Pacific Northwest.

[Ruth Jaensubhakij · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this book incredibly charming and entertaining, can def be read as a stand alone! very fun historical queer crime novel - layered characters, lots of interesting relationships (Ben and Adriel my beloveds) and kept me on my toes!

[Erinisfantastic · Rating 2 out of 5]

Wasn't super into this one. It was extremely gay, which was fun but also a lowkey romance novel with lots of straining pants and heavy breathing which is not my thing! Also the main character was annoyingly portrayed as very tough and ruthless yet also never committed any real violence to speak of so that he could remain the protagonist. Lame!

[Mimi · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5

[Morgan · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5... more like Murder She Ate?? full respect to the craft of this well written and well plotted book but it didn't really move my spirit

[Avah · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 ⭐️ rounded up!

This book kept reminding me of Tombstone, which is one of my favorite movies, so I was having a blast.

Alma Rosales, former Pinkerton now living in Tacoma as the rugged door smuggler Jack Camp, faces an infamous lawman, an old flame, and a sinister mystery!

First of all, I loved the dynamics of Alma/Jack’s crew; the bonds of loyalty and brotherhood were clearly telegraphed & made to feel like they actually had weight on the decisions of every character. My favorite friendship was probably between Alma & Dos Santos, because I have a soft spot for seeing people gossip in Spanish. The complex & messy relationships were so refreshing to see outside of a het/white context, and I appreciated how the characters were given space to be imperfect and in the wrong without being disavowed.

My favorite thing about the book was the incredible sense of time and place that was present in every chapter from beginning to end. Often these things will be established at the beginning when the setting is being defined, and then backburner’d until it becomes plot relevant again. This especially can happen in sequels because it’s assumed that the reader is already familiar with the setting. But Carrasco is really good at cementing her story, and therefore her readers, into 1888 Tacoma.

I would have liked to see more development in the romance between Adriel and Ben, especially since it’s pretty plot-relevant. It seemed quite rushed, even more so when juxtaposed with Alma & Bess’s will-they-won’t-they. I also felt the pacing got a bit weird toward the end, and there were one or two extra chapters dealing with the resolution, but that may be on purpose to give a sense of openness that can lead to future installments.

An enjoyable adventure, engaging queer romances, and a twisty mystery— overall, a great read!

Thanks to NetGalley & RBMedia for providing me with advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

[Sharon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rough Trade is set in the late 1800s in Tacoma of the Washington Territory. The main character is Alma Rosales who lives as a man to make a living in this rough and tumble world. Her alter ego, Jack Camp is in charge of a group of stevedores/longshoremen who are involved in opium smuggling.

[Justin · Rating 2 out of 5]

The fact all the characters are queer can’t save this from how dry and straight it reads.

[Desirae · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

Rough Trade is an interesting and entertaining book, that like its protagonist defies easy characterization. It is a thriller, but also a piece of literary fiction, a historical novel; and last but not least a piece of LGBTQ literature. The characters, and historical setting in the Pacific Northwest are interesting and the setting is almost as important as the characters.

The main protagonist is the cross dressing bantam weight cock of the walk Alma Rosales who as Jack Camp leads a pack of stevedores and smugglers on the docks, and in the bars through work made more difficult by customs agents, newspaper men, competing interests and detectives.

I have read lots of thrillers where the hero takes time off from saving the world from Nuclear Holocaust, a A Nazi revival, or some equally terrible disaster to have a dalliance with an attractive woman. That dalliance is usually a bit superfluous to the main plot—think of 007 sailing off with a beautiful woman as the credits role. In Rough Trade the sexual interludes are an important part of the characters and the story, not just a little subplot. While the characters’ sexual appetites and adventures would have led to criticism during the 1880 period of the book, and in some places still today, as the book is written, those appetites and adventures seem as normal as those of James Bond, and maybe that is part of the point.

The story moves along and is very entertaining, and even though Rough Trade is the second in a two book series beginning with The Best Bad things, I did not feel I had missed anything because Carrasco does an excellent job of explaining the characters, their back stories, and their motivations. I enjoyed Rough Trade so much, however, I will certainly read its predecessor even though I know how the characters will end up.

[Mika · Rating 4 out of 5]

A friend of mine (a Seattleite, of course) once said that the Pacific Northwest is like paradise, except that Tacoma is God's dumpster in a stinky alley behind it. That's unfair; I've been to Tacoma, and anything around the Puget Sound is nicer than, say, the entire western Ohio. But that view of Tacoma came to mind when reading this atmospheric historical crime novel set in its stinky and dangerous 1880s.

Good genre fiction is like a good American diner: it's not fancy, it's predictable, but you can get great stuff, sometimes with refreshing variations, that leaves you deeply satisfied. Carrasco's second in what I hope to be a longer series is an example of that. I skipped the first one in the series, The Best Bad Things, on account of the many lukewarm reviews, but this one stands well on its own. The central characters — the Pinkerton-agent-turned-opium-smuggler Alma Morales, who dresses as a man, the journalist Ben Collins who goes undercover as Benjamin Velasquez, and a few others — are nicely complex. You are not sure you totally want root for any of them, but they themselves aren't, either, which is nice. Theirs is a world of a lot of pretending, about social statuses, about pasts, about sexual desires, about intentions. There is opium smuggling, train robbing, labor politics, romance, and mysterious deaths, of course. The plot, as a result, is satisfyingly tangled, although I think some readers might find it a tad too tangled, or the ending, in contrast, tied up a bit too neatly. But that's OK. You still leave the diner sated and happy.

[Timothy Grubbs · Rating 5 out of 5]

A solid focused tale of historical Washington territory Vice…

Rough Trade: A Novel by Katrina Carrasco is the second novel ina. Series following a former female Pinkerton agent as she gets heavily involved in Washington territory opium trade…and the many troubles that such management requires…

I really enjoyed how straight forward the story was…as it avoids various flashforwards or questions of the lead’s intentions. As with the first book it’s all told from the lead’s perspective as she deals with many new complications in her ongoing operations in Tacoma…

Alma Rosales remains a key figure in tacoma’s opium smuggling from Canada…with all the benefits and hassles…

Where its union strikes, possible railroad embezzlement, and extra inspectors on the docks…there is a silver lining as one of the many friends she contacted (another former Pinkerton) shows up in town to “work”…with all the espionage skills needed…

Unfortunately new problems arise…as someone is killing stevedores hooked on morphine, someone blew up a silver train passing through the territory, and theres a big time lawman in town with his sights set on big name lawbreakers…

Mixed in with the myriad plot threads are various day to day events, plus the further examination of the gay community in Wild West Washington Territory.

I’ll definitely be up for seeing more of this series and world…

[Leslie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thanks to NetGalley and Farrar, Straus and Giroux for the digital galley of this book.

In this latest book by Carrasco, opium smuggler Alma is making a killing in the Western Territory, 1888. She and her crew move their product during the day and spend their nights at Monte Carlo, the center of the queer scene in Tacoma. Once two local men end up dead, the lawmen come sniffing around. As Alma tries to keep them away from her operation, her old love, Bess Spencer, shows up. Bess is ex Pinkerton. Meanwhile, another newbie shows up, starts an affair with one of Alma’s workers and starts asking questions. Is there a spy in her ring?

I picked this one up because I enjoyed The Best Bad Things. I didn’t enjoy it as much, but it was a well-crafted story with rich characters and a plot that kept twisting and turning. It’s a queer historical fiction with a mystery at its heart. Representation on both sides of the gender spectrum in terms of queer relationships, and the story moves pretty quickly. Overall, not for me but a good read, nonetheless.

[Patty · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely fantastic sequel to The Best Bad Things! A queer Western told with all the lyricism of a literary novel and the clear-eyed devotion to facts of an economic textbook.

Alma Rosales (who presents herself as Jack Campbell) runs an opium-smuggling gang in Tacoma in 1888. Everything seems to be going well – until everything goes wrong all at once. Alma's ex-friend/ex-crush, Bess Spencer, shows up in town; Alma's boss demands that she find a new way to get the executives of the railroad company on their side; someone is murdering opium-addicted workingmen; a journalist is tracking the smuggling operation from the factories in Canada to the docks of Tacoma; and a Pinkerton detective arrives in town looking for a train robber but possibly will be in the right place to find evidence of Alma's gang.

I love this series. It's such a vivid recreation of history in all its muddy, cold, wet, bloody reality, balanced by Alma's desire for affection and trust, but need to keep herself safe.

Highly recommended.

[Elizabeth Addison · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received an audio ARC of this book from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

I didn't realize when I started this that it was the second in a series, so it took me a moment to adjust to how quickly it throws you into the action and characters. Once I settled in a bit, I was really captivated by this and didn't feel the loss from not reading the first installment. I absolutely looooove Alma-- she's so brutal and I appreciate that she has more complex ideas about her own gender when she presents male than these stories sometimes engage with. Her relationship with Bess is so compelling. Everything with Ben also worked extremely well for me-- I loved his journey and obviously the dual POV allows for some really fun secrecy. This time period combined with the crime elements made this a thrilling ride! I will probably end up reading more of this series.

[Brian Grover · Rating 4 out of 5]

I recently saw that Katrina Carrasco wrote a sequel to The Best Bad Things, which was a total guilty pleasure. Was very happy to load the new book onto my Kindle for our XMas vacation, as vacations are the ideal time for pleasure reading.

This one picks up a few years (?) after the first one left off, and our protagonist Alma Rosales has moved from Port Townsend down to Tacoma, where she's still running the opium business for her lover Delphine Beaumond. Don't worry - it still rains every day, and Alma is still constantly slugging back glasses of gin and cranking heaters. There's less fighting and less sex (for Alma, anyway) in this book, but it's still grimy as hell, and really fun. The plot in this one is also better than the first book, although there's a pretty ridiculous twist at the ending here. 3.5 stars, keep the Alma Rosales lit coming.

[Nick · Rating 3 out of 5]

Alma runs a waterfront crew in Takoma, Washington, part of a large-scale opium smuggling operation in port cities of the Pacific Northwest the late 19th Century. She does it as a man, wearing a man's clothes, fighting like a man, loving like a man, an impersonation known only by a handful of people closest to her. Evidently Takoma was a hotbed of queer liberation back then, who knew? There are backroom bars where men have sex with each other, usually in pants, but sometimes in drag. The major domo of the drug trade is an imperious woman with whom Alma has sex on a regular basis. All of this is decorative to the twisting switchback of a plot involving undercover journalists, ex-Pinkerton lady detectives (which Alma was as well), corrupt customs officials and railroad tycoons, and a psychopathic pharmacist on a killing spree. This transgressive alternate history is fun to read, though I did find the style annoyingly instructive, like the author was afraid we wouldn't get it.

[Elizabeth Blake · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 actually. I have a lot of thoughts. I loved the story and queer representation. I am torn on how i feel about alma/jack and i understand its supposed to be an anti hero vibe but jury is still out for me. At some points i was routing for them and at others i was like bro come on. Also how sad is it that it’s hard not at all to imagine that opioid filled PNW. I would’ve given it a higher ranking, but I think that the end just came too fast for me and I wasn’t really satisfied by it. I have to assume that there’s another book coming because this is the sequel but I would be interested to see how the first book finished in comparison to this one. don’t know if I’m going to read it though so take that as what you will

[Doug Stone · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting read and done from the perspective of several gay characters, adequately drawn from what I could tell. More like bisexual actually.
For several reasons I found it hard to read, and unsure why. Perhaps the continual twists or the large cast of characters many using aliases when seen from different perspectives or when passing as other genders. Perhaps due to some of the logistics or physics of the narrative world. Not nearly as difficult as Harlem Shuffle where he buried the lead sentence at the end of every paragraph, but still this book took forever to finish.
Anyway, it’s a good detective story with very different characters and wonderful setting. I probably will read the previous book in the series at some point.

[Ada]

Fantastically researched, excellent characterization and both hilarious and heartbreaking in turns, with a great crime plot to boot. I was blown away by how good this is, really. Especially its focus on the early days of unionization and commercial journalism!!! A friend kept hounding me to read this even though I don’t normally read westerns, but there were no cowboys here. Just a lot of dock workers and mill workers and people who I don’t think get quite so romanticized in the American Mythos. This whole book is about people who don’t fit into Ford’s ideas o the frontier and how essential they were to its development.

[Nathan · Rating 4 out of 5]

🌟🌟🌟🌟
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Finishing out Pride month with a fun crime noir set in the thriving and rough-cut, late-1800’s Port of Tacoma. It’s a spinning tale of an underworld that traffics opium, including highbrow society and political operatives, working class stevedores, undercover reporters, private detectives, and a bustling, dark and dirty city full of intrigue. The characters forced to live on the edge of society protect their own to all lengths — the men who meet in dark bars, the gender bending heroes that protect their own. It’s an historical fiction that sheds light on the moral boundaries traveled by those living as outcasts and lengths taken to survive.

[Parkinpj · Rating 4 out of 5]

Would make a very interesting movie. Enjoyed the historical references to gay life in the late 1880's Tacoma, Washington. Alma as Jack Camp was a refreshingly written character: Strong, smart, and wily. Yet she has a code of honor even as she navigates the world of opium trade.

Ben Collins is also an interesting character, and it was delightful how Carrasco highlights the way news morphed from dry financial and political news to the more sensational style. Also interesting to see investigative reporting in first bloom.

So many unexpected twists in this story.

Should have won the Edgar Award.

[Jeff Carpenter · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am reminded of Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson when I think about this book. Both took me to a completely different world, with different characters, different rules, and exotic intrigues. Both built great suspense building to a great ending. I am perhaps a bit more picky about the author's use of the English language now than when I was 10, so I am not quite as carried away by this book as I could have been, but I was addicted to it nevertheless.