The Lock Artist

Apr 08, 2012 Stephen rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: mystery, hardboiled-and-noir, audiobook, 2006-2010, need-to-buy, crime

Safe-cracking is an ART, and 18 year old Michael is a tumbler-aligning Picasso. Unfortunately, this talent has made him an extremely valuable commodity to some rather dangerous folks. Further complicating Michael's very unusual life is that he hasn’t uttered a single word for more than ten years, ever since he was traumatized by a singularly horrific event that he experienced at the tender age of 8.

Michael’s journey in The Lock Artist is told in the first person as he writes his story down in...more

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Jul 24, 2011 Kemper rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2011, bad-guys-rule, crime-mystery, modern-lit, thieves, bouchercon, signed-by-author

How many times have I seen or read about a character picking a lock? I’m a crime/mystery fan so it’s gotta be in the hundreds. Maybe even over a thousand. It’s such a common cliché we don’t even think about anymore. A door is locked, and a character pulls out their little case with their tools and picks it . Yet this is the first story I’ve ever read that actually explains what it takes to pick a lock or open a safe. Surprise! It’s not as easy as it is in the movies, but it makes for a helluva g...more

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Apr 24, 2010 Jeanette rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Jeanette by: Charisse

Shelves: all-fiction, miss-trees, suspense-thriller, four-star-fiction

"Mute artistic safecracker" hardly sounds like a promising profile for the main character in a thriller, but it works. There's a lot of originality here that makes this fun to read.

Michael was rendered mute by a traumatic experience at age eight. Now he's in prison for a robbery gone very wrong, and he tells the story of how he ended up in his current situation. He alternates between two story lines that eventually converge (sort of). One is the story of his young life as a mute, and how he bec...more

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Apr 07, 2011 Mickie rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Dec 26, 2011 Scot rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book won the 2011 Edgar Award for Best Novel of 2011 (Edgar Awards are given annually by the Mystery Writers of America). That means those in the business of writing mystery novels recognize the superior quality in this well crafted tale. I heartily concur.

It jumps back and forth in time, and teaches us how to become an expert safecracker along the way. The narrator is a distinctive young man, Michael--something terrible happened to him when he was a child, before he came to live with his U...more

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Oct 02, 2012 Charlie Deer rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I thought The Lock Artist was a great book. In the book Michael, a 17 year old, didn't speak at all because of his disease. Even though Michael couldn't speak he had this one talent, to open any kind of locks. He met this group of guys that would get into trouble by robbing various houses and stores. I would recommend this book to anyone because it was amazing. The Lock Artist was hard to put down. Hope you enjoy it.

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Aug 02, 2011 Candace Burton rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

RIP Robert Parker, and thank heavens for Steve Hamilton to write this methadone-like book for my Spenser addiction. If you like a good mystery, and by that I mean an actually mystery--not just a crime novel--complete with well-told story, you will enjoy this book. michael is the miracle boy--and the lock artist. something happened to him as a child, and although there's no physiological reason, he's left mute. this makes him the ultimate confidence man, by which i mean that if he's invited to pi...more

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Jan 02, 2010 KarenC rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to KarenC by: Robin

Shelves: better_than_tv, local_author, edgar_nominees_2011, edgar_best_novel

Received an advance reader's edition from a friend and was anxious to get started on it. Been looking forward to Steve Hamilton's newest effort and wasn't let down. While not part of the Alex McKnight series, this was a great standalone novel. It is much better written than Night Work.

Hamilton's approach to telling Michael's story is very different from anything he has done previously. Even though the time frame of the story is short, the central portion took place over a little more than a yea

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Received an advance reader's edition from a friend and was anxious to get started on it. Been looking forward to Steve Hamilton's newest effort and wasn't let down. While not part of the Alex McKnight series, this was a great standalone novel. It is much better written than Night Work.

Hamilton's approach to telling Michael's story is very different from anything he has done previously. Even though the time frame of the story is short, the central portion took place over a little more than a year, Hamilton split it into two parts by alternating chapters between the past and the more recent months of the year. This presentation style worked very well with this story. I re-read the chapters in chronological order, but the drama wasn't the same. The alternating chapters created a higher level of tension in the overall story and the development of the protagonist.

Another unique feature of the story is that it is narrated by a protagonist who has lost the ability to speak. Michael shares his thoughts with the reader to keep the story moving along. Michael proves himself to be not only an artist with pencil and paper, but with locks as well. Both talents are integral to the story.

While we know from the outset that Michael is in prison, Hamilton develops the character in such a way that we have sympathy for him and it's not much of a stretch to attribute his actions to his own gullibility, rather than to deliberate criminal intent.

Liked this book very much and compliment Steve Hamilton on his ability to take risks and to change his writing style. I look forward to his next Alex McKnight novel, but this is a more than suitable standalone story. Not the rugged adventures carried off by McKnight, but fully engaging and entertaining none the less.

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Just finished reading this book for the third time to compare it to the other Edgar Best Novel nominees. It still holds up and is my favorite nominee. Since my memory isn't what it used to be, some of the tension was still there, even though I knew the ending. The coming-of-age aspect was more evident this time around. Even though the story has a criminal element, I think it could be suitable for older teens; those in senior high can probably relate and some may even learn something. Keeping my fingers crossed for an award for this one!

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Feb 23, 2011 Robin rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I have read all of Steve Hamilton's books and maybe I am rating this one a little lower than it deserves because I was so disappointed that it was not a new Alex McKnight mystery. This is labeled a suspense/thriller but it appears to be more like a coming-of-age story. It reminded me of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time. I thought that the main character being mute was a different twist. I like books with inside information and going inside the world of safe cracking was the only...more

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Feb 17, 2011 Jonathan rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: mystery, fiction

The Lock Artist was a very intriguing novel about a mute safecracker. After a traumatic childhood experience, Michael never talks again. Through a series of incidents, he uncovers a real talent, even a gift, for cracking safes. Told in an interesting first person fashion, written as an autobiography, with alternating childhood and later chapters, I enjoyed it very much. Not a whole bunch really happened, but the story was told with real style. Micheal's experiences became yours and you really pu

...more

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Apr 11, 2013 Mike O'connor rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I really enjoyed this book. One aspect of this novel that sucked me in was how the perspective of the author kept changing from the past to the future, and in a consistent pattern. However, it wasn't flashing to far ahead into the future, just about a year or so, so that the two time perspectives would eventually meet by the end of the book. And of course, the plot was interesting and made me want to keep reading. In particular, Mike and his wordless battle with Mr. Marsh was pretty enthralling,...more

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Jan 27, 2013 Rebecca Angel rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Great book. Really well written. The structure was good: going back and forth from telling the story in prison, time in high school, and the year of crime. The main character is a boy that doesn't talk after going through a trauma in early childhood, which he only reveals at the very end of the book. When the structure merges and you find out why he is so driven to open locks...it is powerful and heartbreaking.

There are some really wonderful scenes. The one where he meets his first friend in ar...more

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Jan 21, 2013 Erin rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I'm not actually sure that *The Lock Artist* is young adult fiction, but the protagonist is a young adult (okay, so clearly not genre defining) and the approach to plot and metaphor - accessible - suggests the genre.

Digression on genre:

What makes a book young adult fiction? I'm sure there are theoretical responses and I could do some Research (as I've been trained to do) or recall what I learned in my Children's Lit course (ha! a laughable, terribly run disaster of a course), but I'd rather thi...more I'm not actually sure that *The Lock Artist* is young adult fiction, but the protagonist is a young adult (okay, so clearly not genre defining) and the approach to plot and metaphor - accessible - suggests the genre.

Digression on genre:

What makes a book young adult fiction? I'm sure there are theoretical responses and I could do some Research (as I've been trained to do) or recall what I learned in my Children's Lit course (ha! a laughable, terribly run disaster of a course), but I'd rather think about the question based on what I've read of the genre. And I'll think about it with some other questions: what makes a novel *not* young adult? A maturity of theme? (and yet we call *The Diary of Anne Frank* young adult NONfiction) The age of the protagonist? (No, says *The Life of Pi*, *The Kite Runner* and *Room* to name some recent examples). So perhaps then it's the themes? The coming-of-age? Identity formation? And perhaps, too, the pitch of the narration: something not quite as dense and demanding, something shorter on irony and cynicism, something more approachable and welcoming? I welcome responses to this question - and I'll keep thinking about it.

Back to The Lock Artist:

Given my tentative claims to the genre specifications of YAF, I'll say that The Lock Artist fits in there. The protagonist is mute and so there's a surprising pleasure in reading his first person account because the reader is (explicitly) called into the unique role of listener/audience that our protagonist is otherwise without in his life. We are the *only* people privy to his thoughts because no one else is capable of hearing them.

The metaphor of "locked up" words plays out in the plot of the novel as our young protagonist learns how to be a "boxman" - the safe cracker in a burglary. The story begins with our narrator in prison for burglary so we *know* how the story is going to end - back in prison - but as his version of events unfolds I found myself willing the ending to be different from what I already knew it to be. That is to say, I found the narrator utterly compelling as a narrative voice and as a person: I genuinely wanted things to work out well for him.

The plot has three foci: how he became a boxman, the relationship with his one true love and how he came to be mute. Of the three the relationship story is by far the most compelling. The boxman stuff is *interesting,* (I tried to pick my gym locker!) but it reads as a procedural crime drama rather than as a story of character change. The trauma/mute thread is slightly more compelling, but suffers from over-hype. For so much of the novel the reader is led to believe that this is The Most Traumatic Thing to Happen to Anyone Ever. And while the event *is* awful - and very well told - it can't help but to fall short of expectations, if only because it's been projected as the climax-to-end-all-climaxes. And as it turns out this reader would much rather the climax have been something to do with the relationship with Amelia. And it sort of is. So maybe that's the problem; a divided climax?

In any case, I'd recommend this one if you're keen to consider things like genre, if you'd like to learn about the life of a boxman, or if you're looking for something suspenseful but not all that demanding. Oh and I just really liked - like wanted to befriend - our protagonist. So there's something there, too, for character lovers.(less)

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Jan 19, 2013 Susan rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: book-club

Very fast-paced, engrossing book. It is filed in the mystery section of my library, but it is more of a crime novel than a mystery. The 17 year old narrator is captivating. He cannot speak due to a childhood trauma which slowly unveils itself as the book moves on. He is a somewhat unwitting victim who gets caught up in organized crime, but he also accepts his own culpability and knows he could have turned away at several points.

The story goes back forth between two time periods about a year apar...more

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Nov 15, 2012 Dana Heyde rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I'm still stunned that I found a book about a boy who decides to stop speaking and who can pick locks to be fascinating. "The Lock Artist" was a rare masterpiece that made an odd premise intriguing. I liked Michael from the first page, as he speaks directly to the reader and recounts the startling event that prompted his defiance of speech and lands him in prison. Steve Hamilton was able to present a cohesive novel that advanced themes of punishment, retaliation, love, loss, and defiance. Althou...more I'm still stunned that I found a book about a boy who decides to stop speaking and who can pick locks to be fascinating. "The Lock Artist" was a rare masterpiece that made an odd premise intriguing. I liked Michael from the first page, as he speaks directly to the reader and recounts the startling event that prompted his defiance of speech and lands him in prison. Steve Hamilton was able to present a cohesive novel that advanced themes of punishment, retaliation, love, loss, and defiance. Although its hard to describe exactly what type of book "The Lock Artist" is, as it focuses on so many different things like, crime, murder, love, art, and locks, these elements come together in a strange way to make the a strong and enjoyable novel.

Obviously, the element of locks had a strong presence throughout the novel , which was a clever addition to the plot. The author explains how Michael picks the locks in a manageable way, even poking fun at the complexity of it with the reader. Ultimately, the novel takes the reader on an energetic journey that reveals how Michael's lock picking abilities will influence his life. Draped with humor, Michael's tales of using his lock picking abilities to win friends during high school despite the obvious cliques had me nodding in agreement with his too real descriptions of high school. Michael is also an amazing artist, and this too will impact his life in a positive and unexpected way. The budding romance between Michael and the only girl he isn't supposed to talk to is a perfect counter to the breaking and entering he is doing to make money as a "box man." Flashing between these two story lines, the reader obtains a full understanding of Michael and becomes sympathetic to him. The author crafted a surprising tale to explain why Michael stopped speaking, which brought together the entire story in the final pages.

"The Lock Artist" was a refreshingly clever and original story that I was happy I read. I would highly recommend the novel to anyone looking for something different and engaging. A true must read!

Read more of my blogs at fastpageturner.wordpress.com(less)

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Mar 06, 2012 Doreen added it · review of another edition

The narrator of this Edgar Award winner (2011) is Michael, a prodigy safecracker who's mute and has a mysterious past. In prison, he writes down the story of his life, explaining how a traumatic childhood event left him unable to speak and how he became a master boxman.

Michael is sent on a troubled road among criminal elements and has limited choices. The one positive in his life is Amelia. Using comic book drawings, they communicate and a bond develops that has life-changing effects.

This book...more

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Feb 08, 2012 apple rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: audible, suspense-thriller

For a character who barely utters a single word throughout the entire novel, Michael the Miracle Boy manages to completely stun me with his storytelling. I really haven’t come across a book this riveting in quite some time. Something bad, really bad happened to Michael when he was eight years old and makes him lost the ability to speak. Michael however learns to cultivate other abilities like drawing, which he is exceptionally good at … and later on, he masters the refined art of safe cracking....more

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Jan 29, 2012 Robert Rosenthal rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: anyone who enjoys topnotch fiction

Recommended to Robert by: Emmanuelle Rosenthal

This is an outstanding book, both for its unlikely subject -- safecracking -- as well as its fast-paced plot and perfectly drawn characters, not a one of whom is a cliche (high praise in this era of derivative fiction and film). I could have read it all in one sitting, but chose to take my time . . . and get some sleep.
The main character and narrator, Michael, is unable to speak due to a trauma suffered in childhood, which he does not reveal to us until almost the end of the novel. Let's just s...more

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Jan 14, 2012 Maggie Stiefvater rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: adult

Wow, am I ever on a reading roll. Considering I normally adore fewer than ten novels in a year (about one in six or seven of the books that I read), it seems impossible that I should find another novel I adore so soon after reading Where Things Come Back. But I adored The Lock Artist. Those of you who read my review of Where Things Come Back will remember that I was longing for a book about guns and helicopters and magic, but found Things instead. Turns out that The Lock Artist was the book I wa...more Wow, am I ever on a reading roll. Considering I normally adore fewer than ten novels in a year (about one in six or seven of the books that I read), it seems impossible that I should find another novel I adore so soon after reading Where Things Come Back. But I adored The Lock Artist. Those of you who read my review of Where Things Come Back will remember that I was longing for a book about guns and helicopters and magic, but found Things instead. Turns out that The Lock Artist was the book I was looking for then. Well, if you substitute “safes” for “magic.”

Basically, it’s about a teen with a dangerous talent: picking locks and cracking safes. He gets tangled up with some dangerous people and dangerous things happen. Did you catch that? It is danger x 3.

Here, without further ado, are five more things about the book.

1. Even though it is a thriller/ mystery/ action-adventure, it’s very character-driven. Our main character (the thrillingly named “Mike”) has been silent since the age of eight, when Something Terrible Happened to Him. And by silent, I mean Quiet As The Dead And Not Like a Zombie Novel But Like a Novel Where the Dead Really Don’t Make Noise Because They Actually Are Dead. And by Something Terrible, I mean Something I Thought I Had Guessed Because I Have Read A Million Books But Actually No It Was Not That It Was Worse. Mike doesn’t speak. At all. It’s remarkable to watch how Hamilton manages this narrator who can only tell stories in his head.

2. The pacing. There is something magical going on with the pacing in this novel, and I need to go back and take it apart slowly and methodically to figure out exactly how Hamilton did it. It’s a page turner, but . . . not like that. Ordinarily I’m quiet bored by action sequences. Right, gun, sure, kick, yep, punch, okay, blood . . . are we done here? I want to get back to the plot, and action scenes are often like sex scenes — they are just hanging there, an exclamation point on the end of a sentence that we’ve already read. But, somehow, not with this novel. I HAD to keep turning the pages, yes, but not because of the action. It was because every page left me with a question, and I had to turn the page if I ever wanted to find out the answer. It meant that instead of my usual racing through an action novel, flipping pages faster and faster, I was reading with the same care and urgency at the end as I was at the beginning. I don’t know how to describe it any better than that.

2(b). The prose. This really is sort of in line with the pacing. When I first began reading the novel, I thought, man, this prose is so — easy. It just says what it says. Well, okay, whatever. I’ll just read a few more pages. And then, the next thing I knew, four hours had gone by and I’d finished the novel and I was hugging my Nook to my chest. The prose became utterly invisible. Like a very good thief, it got in, did its job, and got out, without leaving any trace of itself. I can appreciate just how hard it is to write a book that reads so easily. Well done, Hamilton.

3. Girl. You know these things always have a token girl. The one that makes the hero look noble and powerful and hetero. Well, this book also has a girl, but she is smart and unique and felt like a person. There was no thumping of chests and conquests. There was just a really wonderful and slightly uncomfortable teen romance. With comic book, menial labor, and lock picking overtones.

4. The annoying thing about thrillers is that they so rarely pay off. They’re, well, thrilling, and then you get to the end and go, yup. Well, that happened. Next? Possibly the best thing about this book is that the second half of it is as strong as the first, if not stronger, and there is one of the most psychologically horrific scenes that I’ve read in awhile in the second half. It might have something to do with the Terrible Thing That Happened to Mike. Hamilton proceeds briskly from this Terrible Scene into the denouement, which is tense and satisfying and exactly the way I wanted the book to end. That pretty much makes this book the perfect thriller in my eyes.

5. I am not the only person who has adored this book. It is an Edgar winner (that’s a prestigious award for mystery, for you muggles out there) and it’s also an Alex Award winner, which is how I found it. The ALA Alex Award recognize adult books with high appeal to teen readers, and I tend to love their choices. If you compare the list of Alex winners over the years with my five-star-books on Goodreads, you’ll see considerable overlap. Because it’s an adult book, not a YA, I should mention that there are f-bombs and violence and all that jazz. More Guy Ritchie than Tarantino, though, for the most part.

I have now managed to write a novel about this novel. If you’re looking for a book about guns and helicopters and safes, go pick it up. Or even if you’re looking for a book about guns and helicopters and magic. Because it’ll still make you happy.(less)

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Sep 18, 2011 Ann Collette rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

At this point in time, who the hell needs me to tell him or her that this is an absolutely fabulous book? All the praise and awards it's already accumulated testify to that. The prose is simple and straightforward, almost deceptively so. A young man tells his story from a prison cell, pretending he's speaking directly to the reader. His earnest voice is stripped of artiface, distilled to exactly the words he needs to tell the short history of his life so far in. His succinctness makes sense beca...more At this point in time, who the hell needs me to tell him or her that this is an absolutely fabulous book? All the praise and awards it's already accumulated testify to that. The prose is simple and straightforward, almost deceptively so. A young man tells his story from a prison cell, pretending he's speaking directly to the reader. His earnest voice is stripped of artiface, distilled to exactly the words he needs to tell the short history of his life so far in. His succinctness makes sense because he hasn't spoken a word since a traumatic event happened to him at the age of eight. In so many novels, when the reader is teased by the author who constantly alludes to the "traumatic event" that shaped the protagonist, the final revelation is a let down, as it's never as bad as the reader's imagination has made it out to be. One of this wonders of this book, though, is that the "traumatic event" has so totally shaped the protagonist, has so influenced his life and fueled his obsession, that when you finally do find out what happened to Michael, the whole book snaps together as tightly as one of the intricate locks that Michael is fascinated by, and always working on cracking open. Michael leads a lonely life until his talent as an artist is discovered in high school. His talent for picking locks is also discovered and it's this talent that, unsurprisingly, gets him in trouble with the law and then a criminal element determined to exploit it. The story is told in alternating time frames, which increases the suspense. The device is actually extremely sophisticated yet never reads heavy handed or obvious -- everything about this novel feels natural, unforced and, I kept thinking, pure, though I'd be hard pressed to explain exactly what I mean by that. I only know I resented everything in my life that took me away from reading this book, that I believed every word of it, that I flat out loved it -- and that I wish Michael the very best -- EVEN THOUGH HE ISN'T REAL!!!(less)

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Sep 01, 2011 Sarah BT rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

About the Book: Michael is what's known as "boxman"-he has a talent for cracking safes. He was trained by The Ghost and works for a man in Detroit taking boxman jobs for hire. When he gets a call, he goes. As a kid, Michael survived a family tragedy during his childhood but hasn't uttered a word since, which makes him perfect as his job because he will never tell on anyone. Michael is passing his time by writing his story and recounting the journey that landed him in prison nine years ago. Told...more
About the Book: Michael is what's known as "boxman"-he has a talent for cracking safes. He was trained by The Ghost and works for a man in Detroit taking boxman jobs for hire. When he gets a call, he goes. As a kid, Michael survived a family tragedy during his childhood but hasn't uttered a word since, which makes him perfect as his job because he will never tell on anyone. Michael is passing his time by writing his story and recounting the journey that landed him in prison nine years ago. Told in alternating timelines, this is Michael's story of how he became a boxman and the strange events that followed.

Sarah Teenlibrarian Says: This is a unique crime thriller. The book is told in alternating timelines-the first is the story leading up to Michael becoming a boxman (1992-1999) and the second is a narrative of the jobs he takes (2000). This adds to the suspense of the story because things are slowly revealed in the 2000 timeline and then a little bit later we get the backstory of how that happened. In some ways we're one step ahead of the story until the end when the timelines start to connect. This is a effective device as it gives the reader a chance to try and piece together the story before Michael gets there.

Michael is an interesting narrator because he doesn't talk, so his interactions with others are interesting to read about. We know Michael's voice and his snarky comments, but the other characters don't. Michael expresses himself through art to his crush Amelia, and they communicate through comic panels they draw each other.

I was surprised a bit by how much I liked The Lock Artist. It was an inventive story and I liked reading about Michael's safe cracking skills. Anyone who is a fan of crime fiction should pick this one up. This was also on the 2011 Alex Awards list and I could see this having appeal for older teens. especially teens who like mysteries.

I listened to this one on audio and really enjoyed-fantastic narrator and he had a great snarky voice to Michael. I wasn't sure if I would like it on audio, since Michael is a non-speaking character, but it never felt weird and I liked hearing Michael's voice when the other characters couldn't.

Book Pairings: For some reason this book really reminded me of White Cat by Holly Black, even though they aren't that similar. Just the crime aspect of the book makes me think they will appeal to the same readers.

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Jul 08, 2011 Will rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I really enjoyed The Lock Artist for many reasons. Firstly it is quite an unusual angle into the criminal underworld, focusing on enough detail to keep you interested in what would otherwise be a fairly narrow topic but not giving enough away to be a training manual as the author states.
The story is told as exactly that, a story from the perspective of the main character which, whilst providing an interesting point of view perspective, somewhat detracts from the suspense – if he is telling the s...more

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May 27, 2011 Jo rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I had never heard of Steve Hamilton before this book, but after reading this, he is an author I am deffinatly going to be reading again. The main character Micheal is a young man who cannot speak after witnessing some awful tragedy when he was small. A tragedy that we dont get to discover until quite a way into the book but by the time we do find out what happened, you have imagined all sorts of things but never exactly what did happen.

Micheal discovers when a kid that he has a way with locks,...more I had never heard of Steve Hamilton before this book, but after reading this, he is an author I am deffinatly going to be reading again. The main character Micheal is a young man who cannot speak after witnessing some awful tragedy when he was small. A tragedy that we dont get to discover until quite a way into the book but by the time we do find out what happened, you have imagined all sorts of things but never exactly what did happen.

Micheal discovers when a kid that he has a way with locks, he can open any of them. As a school prank he goes with friends to the home of a player on a rival football team so that they can play a prank on their star player. The prank goes too far with Micheal being held accountable to the owner of the house, Mr Marsh and whatever punishment he dishes out. Mr Marsh has a daughter Amelia who Micheal falls in love with, and starts to break into the house just to see her at night when she is sleeping. He communicates with her through a comic strip that they take turns drawing and they become close. Mr Marsh however is in big trouble with the mob owing them big time. He discovers Micheals talent as a lock pick and puts Micheal in touch with a man called The Ghost.

The ghost sets Micheal to work in his shops backroom, practising on safes of all shapes and sizes until he can open any safe in front of him. Ghost then gets Micheal in touch with a gang who he does work with not realising just what kind of world he is getting into. He passes the tests of the mob and becomes one of the main members of the gang. A world of double crossings, murders and more money than he wants is opened up to Micheal. But all he wants to go back to Amelia. This is harder than he thought because her father has sent her away where he thinks Micheal will never find her, but he does. In order to show her why he cant talk, even though he really wants to tell her how he feels, he takes her to the home he shared with his parents. The scene of total horror. How he was locked in a safe too scared to make a sound incase the horror should find him and kill him. Death came close to Micheal but he was saved to live a life of silence and intrique.

I picked this book up thinking why on earth would I want to read a book about the mob and safe cracking, but its not that at all. I genuinely couldnt put it down and couldnt get the pages turned fast enought. The book does flit between time zones but its very easy to keep up with where you are in Micheals life. The New York Times says on the back that this book is too good for words, they are right. This is one book you wont regret reading, only that it comes to and end. (less)

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May 03, 2011 Valerie rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

An exciting and interesting book, fast-paced with good characterisation and a believable plot. A book you will want to keep on reading till the very end. A main character you will care about !

The story is told as a first person narration. It is the written thoughts of Michael and the pictures he draws to help him communicate . This is a voice you ‘hear’ loud and clearly.
Michael is mute
His story is told over four distinct time periods. The present, when he is ‘locked up tight’ both physically an...more

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Apr 29, 2011 Adam Madge rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This a great book originally written to my mind from the perspective of someone suffering the phycological after effects of an extremely traumatic childhood experience. Its great in many ways. The author sets up questions from the beginning by writing the main characters perspective at the present moment and reflecting on the way that the character got here today. Several of the main questions and ideas are left to the latter parts of the book to be revealed which kept me as a reader enthralled...more

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Apr 09, 2011 Barry rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: american, crime-fiction

The problem of expectations – expect too much and disappointment ruins the tale. The Lock Artist appears on number of recommended or “Best” Lists and the premise, a teen-aged elective mute safecracker, sounds intriguing. It promised to be as original as Jonathan Lethem’s tour-de-force Motherless Brooklyn. Alas, this is not Motherless Brooklyn.

After a promising start, by cranking up the suspense by telling that our protagonist, Mike, suffered a traumatic event as a young child and was dubbed the...more The problem of expectations – expect too much and disappointment ruins the tale. The Lock Artist appears on number of recommended or “Best” Lists and the premise, a teen-aged elective mute safecracker, sounds intriguing. It promised to be as original as Jonathan Lethem’s tour-de-force Motherless Brooklyn. Alas, this is not Motherless Brooklyn.

After a promising start, by cranking up the suspense by telling that our protagonist, Mike, suffered a traumatic event as a young child and was dubbed the “Miracle Boy”, an event so traumatic that he never spoke again and can’t tell us even now as he relates his history. The book in the first-person voice, an unusual voice for a novel. Promising indeed.

But then it all falls apart – or more accurately devolves into a by-the-numbers coming-of-age story. I call it the “American Cinderella.” High-school kid from the wrong side of the tracks struggles with quiet dignity while loud, obnoxious jocks and mean girls poke fun at him. Of course the prettiest girl notices his substance and is infinitely patient of his failings. They share a common bond of art – both are gifted artists, naturally. These might sound like spoilers. They’re not, Hamilton telegraphs the clichés. To be fair to Hamilton, they’re such worn clichés, it’s hard not to telegraph them.

He alternates chapters between Mike’s high school life and his present-day problems. It’s an effective device; it helps to sustain whatever suspense is left. The criminal gang can be seen on any run-of-the-mill cable TV movie, so there’s not much of a surprise when the heist finally happens.

This book is a lost opportunity. The premise is good but it’s a shame that the story wasn’t as good. I’ve read one book of Steve Hamilton’s Alex McKnight series. This series is also highly praised. I must be immune to Hamilton’s charms because the book was merely adequate in my eyes. This is not to say that he’s a bad writer. I just don’t understand all the fuss.
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Feb 24, 2011 Paul Pessolano rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

"The Lock Artist" is a very unusual book, first it is told in the first person singular and secondly it is about a trade (Locksmith) that we often think about (especially when we lock our keys in our car) but seldom equate with crime.

Michale has suffered a very traumatic experience at the age of eight. An experience the reader will not be aware of until the final chapters of the book. This experience has left him without a mother or a father. He has also become a select mute and has not uttered...more

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Jan 06, 2011 Tony rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction-crime-detection

Hamilton, Steve. THE LOCK ARTIST. (2010). ***. In this novel, Hamilton abandons his series character Alex McKnight and introduces Michael. Michael is in prison, serving a ten-to-twenty-five-year sentence for safe cracking – at least I think that’s what the charge is. Michael suffered a truly traumatic experience as an eight-year-old boy that left him mute. He communicates through signing and writing things down on a pad. At about nine years of age, he became fascinated with locks, locks of all k...more

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Nov 30, 2010 Kathleen Hagen added it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2010-audio-books, 2010-mysteries

The Lock Artist, by Steve Hamilton, A-minus, Narrated by MacLeod Andrews, Produced by Brilliance Audio, downloaded from Audible.com.

This is a departure, maybe a stand-alone, from the Alex McKnight series Hamilton is known for. In this book we meet Michael, who at age eight was traumatized by events which ended the lives of his mother and father and almost his own. He was so traumatized that he never spoke again. In highschool, the football jocks found out that he was a genius at opening locks, a...more

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Sep 25, 2011 Elizabeth rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The Lock Artist by Steve Hamilton (pp. 301)

A young boy is traumatized and left orphaned to be taken in by his uncle. Choosing not to speak since 8 years of age, he lives a lonely, depressed life until he discovers a talent for lock picking and safe cracking. His new abilities, young age, and unique quietness put him into some interesting and criminal situations.

The book is written from the boy’s perspective. A mute main character seems like a recipe for disaster, but it works quite well. In what...more

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