2014 Winner—Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award—Mystery & Thriller
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.
Suspense right to the end I really enjoyed this book. I think the author’s experience as an engineer brought real atmosphere to the story. I wasn’t completely satisfied with the ending, but it was still definitely worth reading. My only real complaint is there was more foul language than I would have liked. Overall, I was very happy with this book; I read it straight through in one evening!
Enjoyable…a few anachronisms Overall, I enjoyed this book. It kept me engrossed and I read it in one sitting. The pace of the story was good and the switching between time periods was handled well. I wasn’t surprised by most of the revelations, but enjoyed how the story played out and how the characters were fleshed out.
Brilliant Mixture of Mystery, Treasure Hunting, Gothic Horror – yet Largely One Long Wind-Up to the Concluding, Meaty Action So I spent my Sunday reading THE DEAD KEY. Long book… and I don’t mean the number of pages. I happen to like long books. When I was a regular shopper at my local bookstores, my initial selection was based off thickness (how I discovered Robert Jordon and Terry Goodkind and others of that epic length writing). THE DEAD KEY, however, is largely one single, long wind-up, the pacing not really picking up till well past the last quarter.