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The Dead Key cover art

The Dead Key

Written by: D. M. Pulley
Narrated by: Emily Sutton-Smith
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Publisher's Summary

2014 Winner - Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award - Grand Prize and Mystery & Thriller Fiction Winner

It’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 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.
©2015 D. M. Pulley (P)2014 Brilliance Audio, all rights reserved.
Women Sleuths Suspense Crime Thrillers
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Profile Image for Genevieve Paquette

not for me

The Dead Key was somehow both over and underwritten, with a protagonist who inspires absolutely no reader investment and a whole lot of "ugh, you fool!" The mystery was unmysterious, the solution unsatisfying, and the ending was a let down. The whole thing hinged on improbable and unrealistic happenings, causing some other readers to wonder if the author did any research. Better reviews than I have carefully broken down the problems the book has, and they're right, but I still would have reviewed it sort of favorably had the ending not bothered me so much.
The concept was interesting, the setting completely unnerving and upsetting (and the scene with the flies made me want to vomit. Nightmare fuel. The hair on my arms literally stood up and my scalp tingled). The 1960s protagonist was likable and I really wanted her to be ok. But none of that was enough to make up for the simultaneously wishy washy and overblown, melodramatic execution. And there was no shortage of misery-lit tropes, which is really not my thing.
But yeah, what really got me was how pointless the whole thing felt at the end.

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