Hazel Greenlee has just moved to Black Harbor, Wisconsin with her husband Tommy. A rundown small town with lots of crime and a bridge notorious for its suicides. She gets a job as a police transcriber. She’s a fast and accurate typist, as well as an aspiring novelist, so she’s hoping to make a good living while also getting material for a new book, maybe one that will help her get out the town.
Hazel works nights, a dark and atmospheric job in a dark and atmospheric town. But when her next-door neighbor confesses to helping hide the dead body of a 9-year-old child, Hazel finds herself sucked into a complicated case of drug-dealing, double-crossing, and murder, starting with the just-back-from suspension detective Nikolai Kole. As she types up his reports, his voice burrows beneath her skin, and when she finally meets him in person, she can feel the arc of electricity between them.
Tommy is controlling and spends his time off of work hunting with his friends or drinking and playing video games, so Hazel finds herself more and more drawn to the mysterious detective Kole, even going so far as to offer to go into a crime scene and look for the drugs his anonymous source said were there. The man who supplied the drugs that killed the young boy, the drug dealer known as Candy Man, had been murdered in his home. And as soon as Hazel walks into the apartment, she can feel the evil in the room. Detective Kole is in the room before she can even get oriented, telling her that it was a bad idea for her to go into the crime scene, and just as they are about to share a steamy kiss, they see the bag filled with drugs, right where Kole had been told it would be.
As the weeks go by and the bodies pile up—another child who accidentally overdoses, the murder of Kole’s confidential informant—Hazel is pulled into the investigation one report at a time. She uses the information to feed her own writing, and she uses the electricity she feels with Kole to give her the courage to end her marriage.
But the more she learns about the intricacies of the case, the more she realizes that Kole has been in the center of everything. Is it possible that Hazel is falling for a murderer? And if so, what will keep her from becoming the subject of his next police report?
Hello, Transcriber is a dark, atmospheric slow burn thriller that infuses a solid crime story with a powerful setting. The bridge in Dark Harbor, known for its jumpers, takes center stage as a main character throughout the story, popping up in powerful and unexpected places, adding so much texture and danger. Author Hannah Morrissey’s debut crime novel is compelling, shifting in its complexity, keeping readers coming back to the page over and over.
Hello, Transcriber is not an easy book to read. It is painful and difficult. The crimes are heart-breaking. The characters are beaten down. But they are not out. They fight back to find their courage, to find their answers, to find their way out. It’s a difficult journey, but it’s a powerful story, and the payoff is worth the path through the darkness. I can’t wait to read what Morrissey writes next.
Egalleys for Hello, Transcriber were provided by St. Martin’s Press through NetGalley, with many thanks.
