WHEN SHE WAS BAD, Jonathan Nasaw

WHEN SHE WAS BAD starts up with Lily, becoming Lilah on the death of the grandparents who have cared for her for years, morphing into Lilith during a biker gang rape.  

Meanwhile Lyssy is being treated in the institution that Lily is transferred to when she is finally tracked down by psychiatrist Dr Irene Cogan who knows about her DID condition.  His psychopathic "alter" Max is a violent and brutal rapist and murderer but his doctor - Dr Alan Corder - believes he has totally gotten rid of Max leaving behind the childlike - frankly sickeningly childlike Lyssy.

Include in this mix ex-FBI Agent Pender (coincidentally Dr Cogan's lover), oh and for good measure - make Dr Cogan one of "Max's" victim's (tortured but not raped and murdered) and you've got the basic characters of the book.  

Lilith and Max combine to escape the institution and Pender and Cogan have to stop them. 

The opening prologue of the story launches you into how bad Lily's alters can be.   A child like girl, morphing into a sexual predator, changing more more time to a dangerous psychopath - and all in a few short pages.  Lyssy's introduction as the sickeningly sweet childlike character obviously indicates that there's something truly revolting to come.  As the details of his past crimes are revealed, the promise of revolting is surely delivered.  A lot of the truly awful is balanced against the engaging, cheeky and downright silly sense of humour of Pender - who is a larger than life in more ways than one type of character and he's definitely one of the better parts of WHEN SHE WAS BAD.

It's an interesting idea, but you have to wonder about the circumstances that allow two such damaged and dangerous individuals to meet and then escape together.  Leaving that question aside, the only other thing you have to wonder about is do the bad have to be as bad as bad as bad can be, for effect?