Monna Lock is the Army vet turned professional safecracker that the Los Angeles elite call when they need their vaults opened with no questions asked. And her most recent job seems no different. Except as soon as she cracks the safe and secures the valuable item in question, heavily armed guards swarm the onsite location of her assignment. She barely escapes and continues to deliver the item to her client, Huang. But realizing something doesn’t add up, she sneaks out of the meeting and heads home. Only she doesn’t find her son, Evan with her neighbor as expected. The client is at her house, with Evan, and so Monna has no choice but to comply. Before she knows it, she and Evan are being held hostage across the country. And if Monna wants to escape with her and Evan’s lives, she has to complete a risky heist, decades in the making. The Lock Box by Parker Adams is a suspense novel that forces Monna to use her Army training and specialized safecracking skills to pull off the ultimate heist. Or else she and her son won’t live to see another day.
Book
Monna has a system in place to confirm the legitimacy of her assignments and the identity of her clients (with discretion, of course). When her latest client doesn’t match her system, she escapes the meeting and heads home. And when she walks in to find her neighbor missing and Huang with her son in her house, she realizes this was no ordinary job. Despite her attempts to escape, she remembers Evan is also being held against his will. And Huang makes it clear that in order to return home unharmed, Monna must first work with the rest of Huang’s crew – only going by the monikers King, Queen, and Jack – to pull off a burglary. On a heavily guarded yacht. With the owners and passengers on board. If Monna wants to see her son again and return home safe, she has to cooperate and succeed.
Review
Adams sets the tone within the first few chapters in The Lock Box. Readers are eased into the action early on, with the pacing just right for a large part of the story. Monna is a unique and admirable character. She never forgets her military training, which kicks into high gear when the stakes demand it. Yet she never loses her sympathy for others, despite her and Evan’s life being threatened the entire time. Plus, the amount of detail that went in to describing the different types of safes and complexity of breaking into the top-of-the-line vaults added to the story’s entertainment. However, after a while it did slow down the pace and action of the story. But once the third act kicks in and the heist is underway, the action doesn’t slow down until the very end. Add in some mysterious and interesting secondary characters, and suspense lovers are in for a treat.
Parker Adams joins the Cantina Book Club Podcast to talk about switching to a different pen name and his experiences as an accomplished author. Stay tuned for the interview in an upcoming episode and order The Lock Box, available now.
