The Lockpicker Paperback – July 17, 2017

Odd story line, but it kept me reading and engaged. The story is how two dysfunctional men's lives (because of dysfunctional family of origin issues) intersect.

As always, Leonard Chang is suspenseful and wonderful! While I'm only in the first few chapters, his writing grabs your attention, pulls you in and makes you not want to put the book down. He is a master of suspense and great author. This book is no different. From being tangled up in family issues, to crime, this book won't disappoint!

The plot develops in a way that makes it an engrossing read and goes in directions that I would not have predicted. The violence is not gratuitous, as is often the case in this kind of novel - because the characters are fully developed and realistic. I will read more of Leonard Chang's work.

Well written, hard to put down. Author definitely did his research on locks.

Wonderful noir novel. I hope that Leonard Chang will write more.

Brilliant as always. Leonard Chang can do no wrong as far as I'm concerned. Another compelling tell that is at once quietly subtle, but also page-turning. If you haven't yet read Chang's work- get on it now.

I like to throw a spotlight on crime novels that don’t get the attention they deserve. And one such novel is probably my favorite novel of 2017: THE LOCKPICKER by Leonard Chang. Chang is the author of several books I haven’t read yet, and he works as a writer and producer on the F/X channel series SNOWFALL, which is about the origins of the crack-cocaine epidemic in the early 1980s.THE LOCKPICKER is the story of Jake Ahn, a young career jewel thief. A burglary he commits with a volatile new associate in Seattle goes violently wrong, and he winds up fleeing to San Francisco with the loot to lay low with his brother. The brother is a techbro-type whose career is going sideways along with his marriage, and Jake finds himself falling hard for his soon-to-be ex-sister-in-law, who finds herself drawn to Jake’s criminal side. Meanwhile, the associate isn’t quite as dead as Jake thinks he is, and as he’s prepared to scorch the earth in his quest for revenge.What distinguishes this novel is the details. THE LOCKPICKER is no high-octane thriller that formulaically drifts from chase to shootout to sexcapade. No, it takes the time to study the minutiae of the lockpicker’s trade, and I don’t know about you, but I’m one of those people who really geeks out on the details of crime. For instance, I love heist stories that are all about the grappling hooks and stopwatches and abandoned warehouses and black turtlenecks.In THE LOCKPICKER, you’ll learn all about rake picks and snapping picks and tension bars and tumblers. You’ll learn how to tell good jewelry from junk, and how stolen goods are fenced, and how, step by step, to track down someone who doesn’t want to be tracked down. Every detail is as delicious as the glint of light off a genuine diamond. I don’t know how Leonard Chang came by this unimpeachable authority over the little things, but it’s impressive in a way you don’t often see in a lot of crime fiction, which often glosses over the details to get to scenes of high conflict.But more than a criminal study, THE LOCKPICKER is a deep character study. Leonard Chang makes a lot of room for flawed, fully dimensional characters with intriguing weaknesses and even more intriguing backstories. You won’t find a single crime-fiction trope or cliché in THE LOCKPICKER, nor will you find a single false step in the plausibility of its plotting. It’s a novel that honors its ambitions without every putting the plot of pause. It is, in short, an all-but-perfect piece of story craft, and I cannot recommend THE LOCKPICKER highly enough.