The Lock Artist by Steve Hamilton

This was a great story, and I think we may have a new author to add to Kirkendall’s “power” list. It is about Michael who suffers a great tragedy at the age of 8 that costs him the lives of his parents, but the reader does not learn the details of the tragedy until near the end of the book. But, from the outset, one learns that the trauma has left Michael, a.k.a., “The Boy Wonder,” completely mute. After the loss of his parents, he is raised by a caring and loving uncle, although one who is pretty busy with his own life. The story opens when he is 17 years old and in his junior year of high school. Michael serendipitously finds that he is fascinated with locks, all kinds of locks. He becomes astute at picking locks and opening combination locks, but the wrong people learn of his talent and draw him into being a criminal “specialist,” a safecracker. The story artfully bounces from to his angst as a mute teenager trying to fit in with others, and his struggle with the old demons that are tied to the deaths of his parents. It jumps forward to the bigger crimes to which he gets pulled into age the age of 18 and 19. Of course, as he moves around the country at the whim of the mysterious arch criminal, there is a link to his home town and the girl, Amelia, from high school who he loves. Hamilton has given his protagonist a remarkable and sensitive artistic talent, and he uses his ability to draw as his primary method of communicating with Amelia. As I write this review, I concerned that it comes across with more schmaltz than I got from reading the book. I liked this work and look forward to more of Hamilton’s books.

West Coast Don