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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An intriguing story that pulls two different young women in two different decades into a dangerous mystery revolving around a closed bank vault.
Also love it is set in my hometown of Cleveland, OH.
Beatrice Baker is a secretary at The First Bank Of Cleveland in 1978, the same year the bank closed. in 1998, architect Iris Latch is given the job of mapping out the floor plans of the multi-story building, alone. This story shifts through time as we follow Beatrice and Iris through the history and contemporary stories of the bank.
What unfolds is a mystery about suspicious deaths, grand larceny, and links between the mob, an embattled mayor, and the money men behind it all.
I love books that intertwine past and present
I liked the way the two time periods worked together to create this story. I also learned a lot about banking and how the whole situation could materialize. It kept me interested right up to the end.
Excellent read. Kept me on the edge of my seat, wasn’t sure of the outcome until the very end.
This book kept my attention to the very end. Only problem there were so many characters to keep tract of.
Before I began my review I tend to look through the others to see what they thought of the book. Sometimes it helps me get my own thoughts on the book straight. Especially this one. It seems it is one of those that you love it or hate it and very few in between. I will admit the main character for the current time period did get on my nerves a bit, but I tend to be a bit forgiving in the fact that I empathized with her. She really was not doing what she wanted and acted out because of it. Now having said that she also started to learn about the mystery and could not let it go. If she were truly lazy I do not believe she would have as some reviewers have stated.
The mystery is what kept me going and kept my attention. Not the nuts and bolts of how a bank should or should not have been run during a certain time period. Frankly, I wouldn’t know to begin with, so for some that may knock them out of the magic of the story, the author is trying to weave for them.
Overall, the mystery was what one would expect of a good mystery. I admit with others at times it was drawn out, but I still wanted to know what happened. The characters though a bit one superficial at times there was also more depth to them. I saw where this was the author’s first book. This being the case it was truly a very well thought out piece and one I would read again when I have forgotten the details.
What a fantastic novel! It was super suspenseful, which normally freaks me out (because I’m an impressionable wuss), but I loved it! It has 2 alternating story lines that take place 20 years apart with some overlapping characters, but it wasn’t hard to follow. It was interesting and exciting and had some surprises. I didn’t love the main character Iris, but I still loved the book as a whole!
Great book about how we view the past and how the past views us
I had some initial confusion early on with keeping track of the timelines in this book, but I back-tracked a bit and then got deeper and deeper into this twisted plot. I love the idea of being able to stroll through a building that hadn’t been touched in 20 years. What an adventure! It reminded me of a news story a decade or more ago about a Parisian apartment that had been locked up and untouched for over 60 years. It’s compelling stuff!
This is my second book by this author. Pulley’s characters are never angels. There is no one person who shines above the rest. They are all human, flawed and scarred. She writes about real people that the average person can relate to, and I like that.
***SPOILER ALERT***
Now, the author chose not to tie everything up with a neat little bow. At the end, you still don’t exactly know how the heroines in the previous timeline fared. You think they survived South of the border, but did both of them make it there? You just aren’t sure. As for the 1998 heroine, she is a woman on the run. You aren’t sure how long she will last on her own, but she gets away with some cash to start her life over. And you are left to wonder what will become of her…
Really enjoyed this – an unusual protagonist & an intriguing plot.
It was good, very interesting conceptual story. The end was a bit confusing b/c it was jumping between times.
This was a great read!
The Dead Key is one of the few books that stand out from the run-of the-mill books I’ve been reading. In my opinion, a memorable read.
An entertaining book that had a surprising ending.
I never would have suspected the criminal in this story. I like mysteries and drama and crime. I liked the historical background for this storyline. I want to read more books in this book series.
This book did a great job of intertwining stories from two different time periods. It was very fast paced and suspenseful. Unfortunately, the ending did not quite equal the rest of the book. I felt a bit more detail could have been given at the end. I would still recommend this book, however.
I did not like it much. The action was much too slow. I think too much time was spent on the main character’s love life. I would have liked much more attention to have been paid to investigating the mystery which was original.
The story was well written and interwove between past and present smoothly. It was captivating I didn’t want to put it down. I would read another book by this author.
Once I got into the story I could not put the book down. It was well written with good characters and an interesting story that kept you turning the page.