I had this book sitting on my shelf for awhile–I must’ve bought it used at some point–called Keys to the City: Tales of a New York City Locksmith. I recently brought it with me on a trip and read it on a plane. The book was ok and had blurbs from David Sedaris and the New York Times, but . . .

From page 2:

It’s raining so hard the wipers are no help. I don’t know how I got into this parking space. The sounds of the water on metal are like a Latin percussion section. The Wiliamsburg Bridge is about a hundred yards in front of me. I can barely make out the Day-Glo orange mesh they’ve draped over part of it while the repairs are being made. It is such a sick bridge that they almost decided to let it die and build a new one. Instead, they put it on life support and covered the diseased sections in orange.

This is well-written but almost too much so. He seems to be following all the rules and as a result has no voice of his own.

Also, I was a little disappointed when, getting near the end, I realized that the anecdotes in the book span a period of something like ten years. If he had all these stories after a year or two, that would be impressive. But . . . ten years, and that’s the best he could do?