2014 Winner — Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award — Grand Prize and Mystery & Thriller Fiction WinnerIt’s 1998, and for years the old First Bank of Cleveland has sat abandoned, perfectly preserved, its secrets only speculated on by the outside world. Twenty years before, amid strange staff disappearances and allegations of fraud, panicked investors sold Cleveland’s largest bank in the middle of … largest bank in the middle of the night, locking out customers and employees, and thwarting a looming federal investigation. In the confusion that followed, the keys to the vault’s safe-deposit boxes were lost.
In the years since, Cleveland’s wealthy businessmen kept the truth buried in the abandoned high-rise. The ransacked offices and forgotten safe-deposit boxes remain locked in time, until young engineer Iris Latch stumbles upon them during a renovation survey. What begins as a welcome break from her cubicle becomes an obsession as Iris unravels the bank’s sordid past. With each haunting revelation, Iris follows the looming shadow of the past deeper into the vault—and soon realizes that the key to the mystery comes at an astonishing price.
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Plot goes between current time and the time of the City of Cleveland’s default to solve a mystery.
Good story, easy read.
This is one of the best books I have read in quite some time. I found the plot unusual and not at all predictable. I have read it twice within the last year. I have not found a book that is as complex as this. I will be taking a look at her more recent novel and just discovered she has another book coming soon.
Very fun read. I would highly recommend this book.
If you start this book, be prepared to stay up all night to find out what happens. I can honestly say the characters of Beatrice, Max and Iris just pull you into their lives. You feel like you are the one working, overwhelmed by the job, trying to survive on a small paycheck, finding out that things are quite what they seem. As Beatrice becomes fearful and paranoid…so do you…sitting in a small apartment and not sure whom to trust and afraid of every noise.
And Iris comes into the situation over twenty years later and finds things relating to the bank staff and becomes embroiled in the lives of Beatrice and her friend Max. And as you see Iris dig deeper, you begin to fear for her and start looking at every other person with suspicion.
This is a book about banks, vaults, the old rich white men’s club, money, sex and made me very aware of the fact banks can’t be too big to fail and what happens to the people whose homes, retirement, savings can be lost.
But above all it is in one aspect it’s a glimpse into the lives of three women trying to make a difference while overlooked by their bosses and society…..”and the meek shall inherit”…. I would say these women are “The Wonder Woman” of their time risking their jobs and lives for the greater good….all for “the dead key”
You’ll want to own this book…