The Lock Artist: A Novel
Steve Hamilton
Language: English
Pages: 336
ISBN: 0312696957
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
"I was the Miracle Boy, once upon a time. Later on, the Milford Mute. The Golden Boy. The Young Ghost. The Kid. The Boxman. The Lock Artist. That was all me.
But you can call me Mike."
Marked by tragedy, traumatized at the age of eight, Michael, now eighteen, is no ordinary young man. Besides not uttering a single word in ten years, he discovers the one thing he can somehow do better than anyone else. Whether it's a locked door without a key, a padlock with no combination, or even an eight-hundred pound safe ... he can open them all.
It's an unforgivable talent. A talent that will make young Michael a hot commodity with the wrong people and, whether he likes it or not, push him ever close to a life of crime. Until he finally sees his chance to escape, and with one desperate gamble risks everything to come back home to the only person he ever loved, and to unlock the secret that has kept him silent for so long.
Steve Hamilton steps away from his Edgar Award-winning Alex McKnight series to introduce a unique new character, unlike anyone you've ever seen in the world of crime fiction.
The Lock Artist is the winner of the 2011 Edgar Award for Best Novel.
the biggest of all. A complete underwater panorama, with the trash collected there on the bottom of the river. An old tire. A cinder block. A bottle. A piece of lumber with the nails still in it. The stringy weeds pushing up through the debris and swaying with the current. In the middle of everything, tilted slightly with one corner submerged in the sand, the great iron box. Sunken. Abandoned. Never to be brought back to the surface again. That was it. That was the very last panel. “Why does
guardian. I know he didn’t have to do it. He didn’t have to do anything for me. If you ever hear me complain about the man, don’t lose sight of that bottom line, okay? Here’s the first problem, though. If you want to start your life over, you need to move more than fifty miles away. Fifty miles is not far enough to get away from your old life, or to avoid having everyone you meet still know you as the person you were. It’s not nearly far enough if you’ve already become famous for something you
shot backward onto the street, then roared off. As it did, I got one more glance at the man in the backseat. Those sleepy eyes on the other side of that window, staring back at me. Not for the last time. The three of us kept standing there in the driveway. Amelia was crying now. Not wailing away, just softly crying in almost total silence. She wiped her face off. She went to her father and stood before him. He reached out to her, just as I had tried to do. She knocked his hand away. “You
various heights, their combination dials facing the center. It was like a Stonehenge of safes. “Not bad, eh?” He walked the circle, touching each safe one by one. “Every major brand. American, Diebold, Chicago, Mosler, Schwab, Victor. This one here’s forty years old. That one over there is new, hardly ever been used. What do you think?” I did a slow 360, looking at all of the safes. “Take your pick,” he said. What, he wanted me to pick out a safe? So I could take it home, strapped on my back
keep in touch, you know?” He reached back for the bag of money and pulled out a single stack. “It’s good to remember who we both work for.” I took the money. I did. I took it. Then I opened the door and got out. When I looked back, he had rolled down the window. “Have a good trip back home,” he said, “and keep that pager right next to your pillow. I’ll be talking to you again soon.” After he drove off, I sat there on my bike for a long time. I hadn’t even left the parking lot yet. I kept