In December 1978, the doors to the First Bank of Cleveland
were closed, chained and locked up tight in the middle of
the night, leaving furniture, furnishings and files exactly
as they were when the employees left for the day. With a
federal investigation eminent in light of fraud
allegations, the bank was sold to a holding company. Safe
deposit boxes went unopened and their contents unclaimed.
While other abandoned downtown buildings were gutted and
stripped clean, the bank was frozen in time with everything
intact, including an armed guard on duty for 20 years.
In 1998, an anonymous buyer of the historic building has
requested a feasibility study to determine if it is safe
for renovation or if it should be torn down. Inexperienced
engineer Iris Latch is primary drafter of the structure
working on site full time. Her job is to sketch out
blueprints, but the more time she spends in the haunting
building's many rooms, the more puzzles she encounters.
When she discovers a key numbered 547 in a desk drawer,
Iris is determined to find the key's owner by searching
other desks and file cabinets for clues. The more she
probes the bank contents left behind, the more involved she
becomes with ghosts from the past, along with all the
riddles and deep dark secrets hidden inside.
THE DEAD KEY by D. M. Pulley is an exciting mystery
with a perfectly crafted premise. Utilization of flashbacks
to 1978, as well as finely detailed descriptive prose,
gives a true feel for the old bank building and the past
era. The suspense is tautly maintained until the surprising
conclusion, making D. M. Pulley's debut a great read.
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.
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