Three Kinds of Lucky is a contemporary urban fantasy about a magical garbage collector that gets pulled into a power struggle within the mage community. 

Petra Grady is an Arizona “sweeper” who is in charge of gathering and disposing of the magical castoffs called “dross” created by the local mages. It is not considered a particularly glamorous or high profile job and there is tension between the sweepers and the mages who don’t enjoy paying them to clean up after them. Petra is assigned to work on a new dross disposal technique with her former middle-school crush and mage (Professor Benedict “Benny” Stom) but she immediately has doubts about its safety. When her concerns become a reality she finds herself on the run and no one in her life is who she thought they were including herself. 

I was really excited for the start of a new Kim Harrison series because I enjoyed The Hollows and The Peri Reed Chronicles. But this one was a little disappointing. The plot is so bogged down in the details and lingo around the magical system that it’s hard to just sit back and enjoy. And although there is a lot of action the endless descriptions of dross and gathering dross and what to do about dross slow the book down and make it drag. At just over 450 pages it shouldn’t have felt so long but the last fifteen percent was a total slog. I did like the main character (although she has a real “not like other girls” vibe) and some of the side characters are okay (although she never did get an explanation or an apology of why Benny was so awful to her in middle school) and the crosses and double-crosses were interesting. I am also curious going forward with the series that with all the world building out of the way if future installments will be a more enjoyable read and less of an info dump. 

3.5 stars