D.M. Pulley

D.M. Pulley is an engineer turned mystery novelist whose professional experience with historic structures shaped her debut, The Dead Key. While surveying a vacant Cleveland bank, she encountered an abandoned vault and unanswered questions about its safe-deposit boxes. The novel transforms that experience into linked timelines. In 1998, young engineer Iris Latch enters the long-closed First Bank of Cleveland during a renovation survey; twenty years earlier, employee Beatrice Baker becomes entangled in the institution’s concealed dealings. Their investigations connect missing keys, forgotten boxes, financial corruption, and the building’s sealed past. The Dead Key won the 2014 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award before Thomas & Mercer published it in 2015. Pulley’s technical background gives the bank more than atmospheric value: plans, measurements, access points, and physical deterioration all become parts of the mystery. She later continued writing suspense rooted in Rust Belt buildings and buried local histories, including The Buried Book and No One’s Home.