Because if she’s learned one relentless truth about this place, it’s the fact that everybody lies.

As the investigation unfolds, Hazel will discover just how far she will go for her story, even if it means destroying her marriage, her career, and any chance she has of getting out of Black Harbor alive. Through his transcription, she learns that the suspicious death is linked to Candy Man-a drug dealer notorious for selling illegal substances to children-and when Kole invites her on a covert operation to help take the dealer down, the promise of a story calls to her. With an insider’s look at the investigation, Hazel becomes spellbound by the lead detective, Nikolai Kole, and the chilling narrative he shares with her. Until her neighbor confesses to hiding the corpse of an overdose victim. An aspiring novelist, Hazel believes that writing a book could be her only ticket out of this frozen hellscape, but her life isn’t exactly brimming with inspiration. I listened to the Playaway and the reader really brings you into the story, like when you hear the recordings just like Hazel would, complete with spoken “commas” and other punctuation.Hannah Morrissey's Hello, Transcriber is a captivating mystery suspense debut featuring a female police transcriber who goes beyond the limits to solve a harrowing case.Įvery night, while the street lamps shed the only light on Wisconsin’s most crime-ridden city, police transcriber Hazel Greenlee listens as detectives divulge Black Harbor’s gruesome secrets. More than a mystery, this is a character study of a woman questioning every aspect – her marriage, her sexuality, her familial relationships, her career – of her life. The secondary characters are well-drawn and the subplots add to the story and to our understanding of Hazel. While a reader may be morally troubled by the decisions she makes, I think the reader will still feel empathy towards her. Hazel is unhappy with a number of aspects of her life, feeling stuck and unfulfilled. Hazel finds herself wrapped up in the cases, and the detective’s whose voices she hears into the night, questioning the choices that have brought her to where she is today.

But there is an opening on the overnight shift for a police transcriber and crime is not in short supply in this small city that is slowly sinking into the lake. Hazel needs a job while crafting her novel and in Black Harbor, Wisconsin, jobs are not easy to come by. Review by Yvonne Selander, collection development librarian “ Hello, Transcriber ” by Hannah Morrissey

Hello transcriber hannah morrissey