The Lock Artist

by Steve Hamilton

[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.