Rough trade - katrina carrasco

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 Tacomas queer scene, where skirts and trousers dont signify and everyones 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-Pinkertons agent and Almas first love--after years of silence.

A handsome young stranger comes to town, too, and falls into an affair with one of Almas crewmen.

When he starts asking questions about opium, Alma begins to suspect shes welcomed a spy into her inner circle, and is forced to consider how far shell 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 Carrascos 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.