Petra Grady is a sweeper, and a damn fine one at that. Based out of St. Unoc University in a small town near Tucson, Arizona, Petra's job is to go to businesses that have been unable to contain their own dross and collect it so that it can be properly contained. Given just how lax most magic users are when it comes to their waste, Petra and her fellow sweepers are kept very busy.
After a particularly troubling day, Petra learns that she is being reassigned. Instead of going out on calls, she will be reporting to a local university lab that claims to have made a significant breakthrough. This lab has apparently found a way to make dross completely inert and harmless. On the one hand, inert dross means it shouldn't pose any harm to bystanders. On the other hand, it could mean that there is no more need for sweepers.
Petra isn't actually worried about her job security, though. While the team lead is confident in his research so much that he just tosses the solidified dross into the mundane trash, she knows just how lazy most magic users are. Heck, most of her job is picking up after them when they can easily contain the dross on their own. While the researchers have shown that they seem to be able to cause the dross to go inert, the (literal) lab conditions aren't something most magic users will have access to. And they definitely don't have the kind of discipline the team's leader does.
Petra's worries mostly center on two things. One is the lack of long-term study and testing on the solidified dross to know if it will ever revert. The other is the team lead himself. The head of the team, the person that apparently asked for her specifically, is Dr. Benedict Strom. Petra and Benedict were close friends when they were children. From an early age, they knew Benedict could use magic and Petra was destined to be a sweeper. When the pair got into high school, Benedict seemed to shun her and the two grew distant. Petra's aggravation over their falling out is just one of the complicated emotions she will have to deal with as she becomes Benedict's team's dedicated sweeper.
Just to add to the chaos in Petra's life, the job she has been forced into is the exact one her roommate, Ashley, had applied for in the hopes of landing her first real job after graduating from St. Unoc. Needless to say, when Ashley learns that Petra apparently snatched up the job right from under her, her roommate isn't going to be happy.
Unfortunately, Petra is going to have to put hurt feelings and professional pride on hold when a disaster at St. Unoc's dross containment facility causes all hell to break loose. Now Petra and Benedict are on the run as everyone is quick to assume that Benedict's experiments are the cause of the disaster. While Petra is focused on staying one step ahead of their pursuers, she can't help but wonder what exactly is going on and who she could possibly turn to in order to get them out of their current mess.
Of course, not everything, nor everyone, is what they appear to be on the surface. As Three Kinds of Lucky unfolds, friends will show their true colors, perceived enemies will be allies and everything Petra thought she knew about how the magical world works will be turned on its head. The state of the world at the end of this book looks very different from the scene readers are treated to in its opening chapter, and boy is it a fun ride in the middle.
I absolutely love the world that Harrison has built in Three Kinds of Lucky. She quickly establishes the rules of her magic system and then, just as swiftly, subverts those rules revealing that that system is even deeper than originally thought. Outside of the magic itself, the main characters are easy to relate to and even some of the nastier bad guys feel right, even if I don't relate to them at all. I am very excited for the next installment of The Shadow Age, if nothing else then to see how the world changes after the events of Three Kinds of Lucky.
