A Trinket for the Taking
“Laurie fans will not be disappointed in A Trinket for the Taking. The concept of two different worlds in this cozy will draw the reader into a fantastical story.”
Cozy fans know what they are looking for in their favorite genre: female protagonist, BFF or close relative as the second character, murder early in the story, a love interest as a secondary thought, and a good number of suspects—any one of whom could be the murderer.
The story is usually set in small-town America or perhaps in Great Britain; current day or historical era.
Victoria Laurie in her recent cozy, A Trinket for the Taking takes the reader down a totally different path. The basics are the same but wait for it—her heroine, Dovey Van Dalen is a 200-year-old sleuth mystic whose job is to solve mysteries.
As a mystic, she is bound to another mystic, Elric, who is one of the most powerful leaders and oversees one of the few courts in the world of mystics. And he operates it in Washington, DC. Not exactly a small town. Mystics relationships with the unbound (humans) can be challenging and in Trinket that turns out to be one of her biggest challenges.
The story starts on Dovey’s 200th birthday, and instead of a lavish birthday party, she is told that one of the revered “trinkets” has been stolen, and she is assigned to find it. She has a deadline of just a few days.
Mystics live with “trinkets” and these little vessels perform different feats as needed, such as giving invisibility to a mystic, or freezing the memory of an unbound, even binging the dead back to life. As Dovey explains, ”Trinkets act like battery packs for the electromagnetic energy that we pour into them. . . . trinkets allow us to store up and save our own energy for a later day or take additional energy from an object created by another mystic to redirect, restore, or even strengthen our own.” Then there are the obscenely powerful Pandora Trinkets. Originally there were seven Pandoras, and two have been destroyed, leaving only five.
When Nicodemus Kallis appears at SPL, Inc., Elric’s headquarters, he announces the theft of one of the Pandoras, the Promise. Now, Nicodemus is a “diplomat from the court of Louis Vostov, a twelve-hundred-year-old mystic based in Rome . . .” and as powerful as Elric. This Pandora is under the care of Vostov, and the question now becomes, did one of Elric’s court steal the Pandora?
Dovey knows immediately that this is a terrible situation. The Promise, when used, will cause anyone it is used against to die in the way they fear the most. Elric assigns Dovey to find the Pandora trinket and return it before this can happen.
Laurie starts the suspect list early in the story. Can Nicodemus be the thief, looking for more power? Or Petra, Elric’s wife—their marriage is not one of love, and she has her own desires for more power in her own court. Could she be looking to destroy Elric?
It does not take long before the first death occurs, and it is an unbound. Augustus Ariti is found burned to death in his charred art gallery—his greatest fear has always been fire.
Enter FBI Agent, Grant Barlow, tall, blond, handsome, well-muscled, and wanting to know who Dovey is and why she is investigating Augustus’s death. Dovey lies and tells him she is a private investigator and was hired by Augustus’ sister to determine what happened. At this point while dining with her best friend, another mystic, Ursula, and Agent Barlow, a body falls from the 19th floor of a high-rise and lands on Barlow’s car. The victim is Eleni Katapotis, Augustus’ sister.
As the unbound Agent Barlow follows his clues, he and Dovey become closely linked in their search for the truth. He wonders if Dovey is really the investigator she claims to be, and Dovey is falling for the unbound agent. She knows this is a relationship that will not work in her world or in his. And yet—there it is.
The clues that Dovey follows lead to another bound, Lavender—an evil mystic whose goal is to destroy Dovey. At the same time, Dovey is working with Barlow to learn why two unbound humans have been selected as victims. “Who in the world would target the Ariti family with a powerful trinket, but fail to use mystic methods to cover his tracks,” she wonders. “. . . whoever took the trinket was an adept thief with a penchant for revenge against a family of unbound.”
Laurie has designed several good suspects to fit the role of murderer—on the one hand, the bounds, Petra, Nicodemus, and Lavender all know the strength of Pandora’s Promise and desire more power. But what is their motive? On the other hand, The Ariti family: Ambrose, the remaining brother; his ex-wife Gina; Eleni’s ex, Konstantinos—any of these characters would be in line to inherit the Ariti family fortune. All are unbounds.
More clues and red herrings when Dovey and Barlow attend Augustus’s funeral, and his niece, Hermia, attempts to kill herself, but is saved by Dovey. Her fear is the knife, and yet that is what she uses to attempt her suicide.
When Barlow and Dovey visit Ambrose to determine reasons for these deaths, a chilling scream is heard, and when they all rush to the swimming pool area, they find Cheyenne Ariti, Ambrose’s second wife, dead from drowning. They also learn that she was terrified of being near water. What is happening to this family?
Laurie sets up exceptional fight scenes throughout the story as the story unfolds. Each scene brings Dovey and Barlow close to death, and is designed to reveal the last person the reader would expect to be the killer.
Laurie fans will not be disappointed in A Trinket for the Taking. The concept of two different worlds in this cozy will draw the reader into a fantastical story.