From the Bookshelf of Willoughby-Eastlake Public Library…

The Dead Key

D.M. Pulley

Start date: November 1, 2015

Finish date: December 1, 2015

Discussion: Book Discussions

Discussion leader: Trent Ross

Why we're reading this: Join us for our book discussion held at various Historic Downtown Willoughby restaurants. On November 23 …more
[close] Join us for our book discussion held at various Historic Downtown Willoughby restaurants. On November 23 we'll discuss The Dead Key by D.M. Pulley at The Art Gallery Willoughby

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What Members Thought

Oct 09, 2015 Ken rated it it was amazing

Shelves: psychological, favorites, mystery-crime

The Dead Key by D.M. Pulley is a fantastic tour-de-force of a first novel. This is a psychological mystery split between two decades and driven by two very different women. One is a teenager in 1978 who lies about her age to get a “good” secretarial job in a powerful, downtown bank, and one is a 23-year old civil engineer trying to re-energize her career on a new assignment that leaves her on her own in that dusty old bank 20 years later.

The chapters alternate between the events of 1978 with ou The Dead Key by D.M. Pulley is a fantastic tour-de-force of a first novel. This is a psychological mystery split between two decades and driven by two very different women. One is a teenager in 1978 who lies about her age to get a “good” secretarial job in a powerful, downtown bank, and one is a 23-year old civil engineer trying to re-energize her career on a new assignment that leaves her on her own in that dusty old bank 20 years later.

The chapters alternate between the events of 1978 with our teen, Beatrice Baker, and 1998 with our fledgling engineer, Iris Latch. The narrative that links these two women together is the mystery of the sudden closing of the bank in 1978, and it’s even more mysterious entombment.

Iris has been given the job of surveying the bank by her architectural firm for the new owner, who presumably is going to do something with the building that has sat vacant and idle since it’s sudden closing 20 years before. What Iris finds is a first class mystery that is far more fascinating than just an old building. The old bank is like King Tut’s tomb, preserved for the ages just as it was in 1978, just as if all the employees walked out at five o’clock one day, locked the doors, and never came back. The interior of the bank seems to be untouched; family photos are still in their frames on their desks, center desk drawers are full of pens and paper clips, file cabinets are full of files, and there is one lone watchman who patrols the bank, making sure that it all remains so.

And as if this isn’t odd enough, Iris realizes that most of the safety deposit boxes in the bank’s vault are untouched and still locked. No one has come to claim their stored possessions.

Beatrice’s experiences start the mystery and Iris follow the clues that are left to a surprising conclusion. Both the women are linked by the key to safety deposit box 547 which seems to be at the center of it all.

The author’s writing is very satisfying. People behave as you would expect them to, whether they are bank executives, secretive bank guards, secretaries in 1978, bartenders, civil engineers, and old-school cops. This story will keep you engaged through to the end, and guessing about the mystery, and people whose lives have been scarred by it.
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Nov 16, 2015 Trent Ross rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: adult-fiction, mystery, book-club

Nov 27, 2015 Helen Drake rated it really liked it

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