The Lock Box
Parker Adams
Crooked Lane Books
March 19th, 2024
The Lock Box by Parker Adams brings to life a vivid heist with a safecracking heroine, and a diabolic stew of villains.
“I was sitting at home during the Covid lockdowns and being a big fan of heist stories, it occurred to me this would be a great time to pull off a big crime. It was very much a controversial decision by me to write a story around a pandemic. We did not know how much appetite there would be. But it is in the background, more of a setting. I hope it is not a raw nerve anymore.”
Safe cracking details are given in the story throughout. “For me, safe cracking fits into the question how you get into a locked box. Since I am a technology lawyer when I write books there is some kind of technology angle. I enjoyed coming up with the technical challenges. I watched videos online to find information about safe crackers.”
The story opens with army vet mechanic-turned-safecracker Monna Locke recruited to be part of a dangerous heist. At the age of sixteen, when her mother died, she is taken in for a few years by her high school shop teacher, Mule, who becomes a good friend, and taught her how to work with machines and mechanics.
She’s hired to retrieve a box from a mansion’s safe and barely escapes an attack by a gang of armed men. When she makes it home, her client is waiting and kidnaps Monna and her young son, Evan. To keep Evan alive, Monna is forced to work with her kidnappers on a heist to break into the most complicated safe ever designed. Forced to practice breaking into this impenetrable safe, Locke bides her time and eyes her escape routes. She knows there’s no way to finish the job she’s been forced into, but it’s either crack the lock, or lose everything.
“I wrote Monna as a combat veteran. She is daring, patient, brave, and at times distracted. Two or three adjectives that really describe her can be loyal, very physical, and she enjoys working with her hands. I do not think she uses her military skills very much in the story. I describe her as a combat vet because she was in the combat zone but was a machinist. She is more of a hand-to-hand physical person.”
Just as author Marc Cameron has his grandpa character with folksy sayings in this book, there is someone that raised her, Mule also with sayings. “He was a positive influence in her life. She falls back to his advice when she needs guidance.”
This book has expertly choreographed scenes with a lot of twists and turns. There’s action, but it does slow down a bit with the details about safe cracking. Overall, it is an intriguing storyline.
