Why I wrote The Lock Artist
Prize-winning crime author Steve Hamilton tells the extraordinary story of a safe-cracker trying to unlock the key to his past.
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Michael hit the headlines once before, a seven-year-old kid the papers called The Miracle Boy on account of how he survived the terrible incident that took his parents. But although his escape was miraculous, it left him unable to speak. Taunted as a freak, school becomes a fresh nightmare, until Michael discovers he has a special talent that makes people sit up and take notice: he can open locks. But a teenage prank, breaking into the house of a rival school’s quarterback, lands him in hot water, and despite his best intentions, Michael soon finds himself on a downward slope that ends with expert instruction on how to open safes. And unless he agrees to put his newfound skills to use, the mob are going to kill the father of the girl he now loves. So begins an extraordinary life of crime – at once terrifying and exhilarating – while all the while, Michael plots how to turn the tables on his employer, win back Amelia, and find the key to unlocking his traumatic childhood memories.
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‘From the beginning, it was a crazy idea – writing a thriller where the main character couldn’t speak. But paradoxically, once I could hear Mike’s voice in my head, I knew I wouldn’t be able to write anything else until I’d put it down on paper. Mike was also much younger than anyone I’d ever written about before. Seventeen going on eighteen, and like myself at that age, he feels like a total outsider. Like an alien on the wrong planet. In young Michael’s case, he’s still dealing with something terrible that happened to him many years before. And as a result, he becomes mute.
Writing in Mike’s voice put me in touch with some intense personal feelings. But that wasn’t the only risk I took in writing his story. Because Michael has some rather unusual talents, I had to learn all about lockpicking and safecracking. I got to work with one of the best ‘boxmen’ in the world, as I tried to get into the head of a master criminal. While writing the book, I had no idea if the powerful emotion I was feeling would communicate itself to the reader, and this unlikely, damaged hero would win their hearts. But as another writer once said to me, ‘You have the write the book you’re most afraid of.’ So that’s what I tried to do.’
