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When She Was Bad: A Thriller [Mass Market Paperback]

Jonathan Nasaw (Author)
3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)

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Book Description

November 25, 2008
The author of Twenty-Seven Bones and The Girls He Adored delivers another nailbiting thriller featuring former FBI agent E. L. Pender. Breathtaking and suspenseful, yet leavened with a perverse and quirky humor, When She Was Bad examines the terrifying relationship between two hot young lovers who also happen to be coldblooded killers.

"Multiples in love: imagine the possibilities," said one of the twisted couple's earlier victims. Lily DeVries and Ulysses Maxwell have quite a few things in common. Both were horrifically abused as children, then diagnosed with multiple personality disorder, and eventually incarcerated in the same Oregon mental institution. There, they fell into the hands of the well-meaning, genially sinister director, Dr. Al.

When the ingenious lovers engineer a bloody escape, the only people who have a chance of stopping them are the rumpled, endearingly flawed E. L. Pender and Dr. Irene Cogan, a brilliant psychiatrist who loves Lily almost as much as she fears Maxwell. With the aid of a private investigator, Pender and Cogan take on a pair of killers who win hearts as easily as they slit throats.

A sexually charged thriller of undeniable originality and page-turning suspense, When She Was Bad moves at a rapid clip from the inner recesses of two twisted psyches to a terrifying climax and brilliantly realized finale.

Emotionally taut and difficult to put down, this tale of sex, romance, madness, and murder will not disappoint.


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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

While novels featuring a love affair between the multiple personalities of two psychopathic serial killers are certainly rare, any points Nasaw might have earned for originality are canceled out by the improbable plot of this fourth E.L. Pender adventure (after 2004's Twenty-Seven Bones). British psychiatrist Alan Corder has spent years trying to cure Ulysses Maxwell, an in-patient at a prestigious Oregon treatment facility, of his murderous alternate identities. Maxwell, who's obviously clever enough to game the system, gets an unexpected ally when the attractive and deranged Lily DeVries arrives at the center. After Corder hosts the two killers at his house, they butcher him, his wife and their psychiatric attendants and make their escape. Soon ex-FBI series hero E.L. Pender and Dr. Irene Cogan, a psychiatrist who was kidnapped and tortured by Maxwell, take up the pursuit. Though Nasaw raises interesting questions about identity and sanity, his superficial answers leave this blood-soaked action yarn lacking genuine thrills or chills. (Sept.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author

Jonathan Nasaw is the acclaimed author of Fear Itself and The Girls He Adored, both Literary Guild Selections. He lives in Pacific Grove, California.

Product Details

  • Mass Market Paperback: 368 pages
  • Publisher: Pocket Books; Reprint edition (November 25, 2008)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1416534172
  • ISBN-13: 978-1416534174
  • Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.3 x 1 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #146,092 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

6 Reviews
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4 star:
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3 star:
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Average Customer Review
3.8 out of 5 stars (6 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant! An absolutely original psychological thriller!, October 10, 2007
Excellent reading. Highly recommended. You will read this book in one sitting.

Jonathan Nasaw's new thriller, When She Was Bad, again demonstrates why Nasaw has been called "the new master of the psychological thriller" (Toronto Sun). The plight of Lily touches you because her character is so well-developed that you sympathize with her even while she angers you. FBI agent, E.L Pender, is again onboard as is the serial killer, Max/Kinch/Lissey.

Readers will better understand this one if they have already read The Girls He Adored, Nasaw's first book in the series. Although the subject is serious (dissociative identity disorder--once called multiple personality disorder), a quirky humor is present throughout and makes the tension more bearable. Nasaw delves deeply into the psyches of two sexually abused individuals and wants the reader to understand how events in their young lives fractures their minds so badly that they can no longer cope.

It seems as though is not Nasaw's objective to try and trick the reader as to who killed whom. His writing is much more intelligent and serious, with humor thrown in for a read that is both thrilling, while seeking to define what happens to sexually abused individuals in our society today.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars A sequel worth reading!, January 16, 2009
This review is from: When She Was Bad: A Thriller (Mass Market Paperback)
Oh, I enjoyed this one quite a bit! It was a very fast read, and it made for a rather happy ending for everyone. I suppose I was a little disappointed for Max's fate - he was a pretty charming killer in the first book... also, the end of this one was pretty preachy about child abuse, but it still made for a very exciting book and one that I'm happy to have read (even if the first one, The Girls He Adored, was BETTER!)
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4.0 out of 5 stars BOOK REVIEW, January 24, 2011
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Very happy with my book almost like new , just reading now, It is the continuation of a prior book that he has written.
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Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
psych techs, when she was bad, coin sorter, alter identities
Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Mama Rose, Irene Cogan, Ulysses Maxwell, Uncle Pen, Hush Puppies, Shasta County, Pebble Beach, Jim Beam, Pacific Grove, Alan Corder, Mullet Woman, Scorned Ridge, Miss Stockings, Santa Cruz, Grateful Dead, Agent Pender, Little Bear Creek, San Jose, Big Sur, Marti Reynolds
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