The Lock Artist

by Steve Hamilton

Prize-winning crime author Steve Hamilton's hugely commercial mainstream breakout tells the extraordinary story of a safe-cracker trying to unlock the key to his past.

Michael hit the headlines once before, a seven-year-old kid the papers called The Miracle Boy on account of how he survived the terrible incident that took his parents. But although his escape was miraculous, it left him unable to speak. Taunted as a freak, school becomes a fresh nightmare, until Michael discovers he has a special talent that makes people sit up and take notice: he can open locks.

But a teenage prank, breaking into the house of a rival school's quarterback, lands him in hot water, and despite his best intentions, Michael soon finds himself on a downward slope that ends with expert instruction on how to open safes. And unless he agrees to put his newfound skills to use, the mob are going to kill the father of the girl he now loves.

So begins an extraordinary life of crime - at once terrifying and exhilarating - while all the while, Michael plots how to turn the tables on his employer, win back Amelia, and find the key to unlocking his traumatic childhood memories.

• ISBN10: 0752883313
• ISBN13: 9780752883311
• Publish Date: 9 June 2011 (first published 5 January 2010)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: GB
• Publisher: Orion Publishing Co
• Imprint: Orion (an Imprint of The Orion Publishing Group Ltd )
• Format: Paperback (B-Format (198x129 mm))
• Pages: 416
• Language: English

Reviews

[pamela]

I really struggled with The Lock Artist. It belongs clearly within the adult crime noir genre, but the plot, writing style, and over-reliance on archetypes made it feel like it was written for a much younger audience.

There are quite a few things to commend Steve Hamilton for. His use of a protagonist with selective mutism was both well developed and unique. It made Michael an interesting narrator, as it gave him a unique worldview. The scenes of lockpicking were also well written and researched and were, without a doubt, the best parts of the book.

Where The Lock Artist failed to grab my interest, however, was in Hamilton's prudish aversion to writing about sex and violence. This is meant to be a dark book about crime with a host of violent characters, and a lot of trauma. But Hamilton seems unwilling to actually write about any of it. Because of that, there is no real sense of dread or the high stakes of the narrative. I wasn't able to engage with Michael's choices, because I never really felt the danger that he did. Because as far as it was presented on the page, that danger barely existed.

Apart from Michael, every character was just an archetype, with absolutely no character development or back story. Some of the characters were so archetypal that Hamilton didn't even bother to name them. It was almost impossible to engage with any of the secondary characters because of that, meaning I never really felt invested in their lives or choices. With a bit of YA-style instalove and a manic pixie dream girl love interest thrown in, I just couldn't really immerse myself in the story.

Overall, I found the whole book overly simplistic and somewhat juvenile. The language, the characters, the plot – they all felt like they belonged to a book designed for a much younger audience.