The story of “The Lock Artist,” the wonderful new standalone by Steve Hamilton, the author of the justly popular Alex McKnight series, is told in a series of flashbacks covering the decade of the ’90′s. Not written in linear fashion, each chapter’s time frame helpfully appears atop each page, but the reader nonetheless has no choice but to stay sharply focused on the plot, which is no problem at all: I was riveted throughout.
Michael, the protagonist and eponymous professional safecracker, is well-known in the town just north of Detroit, Michigan, where he grew up. He has been called, among other things, the Milford Mute, for he is and has been apparently incapable of speech, or indeed of sound of any kind, since barely surviving unspeakable trauma at the age of eight, though the several doctors consulted believe that there is no physical cause. As the flashbacks begin, he is seventeen years old, and describes himself as “the specialist, brought in at the last minute to do my part. It didn’t help that I looked like I hadn’t even started shaving yet, and that beyond that I was some kind of mutant freak who couldn’t even say one word out loud.” He is The Boxman, able to open any lock, crack any safe, and is the one called upon when only the best will do.
The reader completely accepts Michael’s life and his condition, so expertly is it laid out. Equally so his “indenture” to a man who remains nameless other than “the man in Detroit” through whom arrangements are made for the jobs Michael is given, for a fee to Michael of course and a cut off the top to “the man.” While the specifics went right over my head, great pains are taken to describe the process he follows when opening a lock, or a safe. [In an author's note we are assured that just enough of the details are changed so that no illegal acts will result.] The author certainly makes the troubling point that “[n]obody is safe. Ever. Anywhere.”
Parenthetically, it was delightful to find Michael using a fake identity, at one point, in the name of Robin Agnew, real-life Michigan bookseller extraordinaire.
To call this novel compelling is an understatement; it was nearly mesmerizing. Mr. Hamilton has created a unique protagonist in this thoroughly original tale, and it is highly recommended.
This book is also amazing on audio! I loved, loved, loved it. Definitely one of my favorites this year.