The Dead Key by D M Pulley
The Dead Key by D M Pulley
Introduction
The Dead Key by D M Pulley is a story about two women separated by time but connected by a secret involving an abandoned safe deposit box. In 1978, Beatrice Baker interviews for a job at the First Bank of Cleveland. In 1998, Iris Latch is an architect who is examining the First Bank of Cleveland building for a redevelopment project. The Bank was closed twenty years before and has been abandoned for all those years. The safe deposit boxes are still locked from the day the bank closed. Iris must figure out what happened at the bank in 1978.
Summary
The chapters alternate between the two viewpoint characters. Beatrice gets an interview with Mr. Thompson at the bank with the help of her Aunt Doris. Beatrice is young and naïve but gets a job in the secretarial pool. Max, who is another secretary, takes Beatrice under her wing. Mr. Thompson, Aunt Doris, and Max all have secrets and Beatrice must discover the truth, or someone will end up killing her. Iris has been doing menial work for her architectural firm. She is assigned to assist Brad in drawing floor plans for the old First Bank of Cleveland building so that the building could be redeveloped.
Iris sees the locked safe deposit boxes in the building’s basement and is curious about their contents. She is involved with her coworker Nick both romantically and work-related. This complicates Iris’s life. Beatrice and Iris’s stories are connected through one man, Ramone. He was a janitor in 1978 and has served as the lone security person for the entire building from 1978 to 1998. His knowledge is important to both women.
Recommendation
There is a lot to like about this novel. The background is interesting. The writing is clear. The mystery is complicated. I find that the protagonists keep this novel from being great. Beatrice is sympathetic because she is young and thrown out of her element. She should have grown more as a character because of all the stressful events that occurred during the story. Iris is simply unlikeable. She smokes, has a superficial relationship with Nick, and is frankly dumb. Iris does risky and foolish things in this novel. She stumbles onto the truth despite her shortcomings. I wasn’t rooting for her to succeed and thought that she ended up where she should have.
Links
This is the link to the Goodreads page of The Dead Key by D M Pulley.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22914448-the-dead-key
This is the link to my review of The Unclaimed Victim by D.M. Pulley. Ethel from March 1938 and Kris from April 1999 are connected through the Torso Killer of Cleveland. They are targets. Can they survive?