Publisher: Minotaur Books
Published: November 30, 2021
Source: ARC Paperback via Author / Publisher
Summary:
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.
Every 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. As an aspiring writer, Hazel believes that writing a novel could be her only ticket out of this frozen hellscape. And then her neighbor confesses to hiding the body of an overdose victim in a dumpster.
The suspicious death is linked to Candy Man, a notorious drug dealer. Now Hazel has a first row seat to the investigation and becomes captivated by the lead detective, Nikolai Kole. Intrigued by the prospects of gathering eyewitness intel for her book, Hazel joins Kole in exploring Black Harbor’s darkest side. As the investigation unfolds, Hazel will learn just how far she’ll go for a good story―even if it means destroying her marriage and luring the killer to her as she plunges deeper into the city she’s desperate to claw her way out of.
My thoughts:
I was one of the very lucky ones to win an advanced copy of this debut novel from the author herself and I was so excited that I could not wait to read it. I rarely read books so far ahead of release day, but this one sounded so good that I had to dive right in!
This is a dark, gripping and completely atmospheric read and once I started it, I found myself completely invested. I love crime thrillers and this one takes us on one heck of a ride. It’s full of twists and turns and really kept me guessing all the way until the very end. And we even get quite a bit of character development to boot!
I loved that the story is narrated all from Hazel’s point of view. She is such a complex character and she’s the kind of character you just can’t help but root for. As a police transcriber, she hears it all – all the gruesome details of the interrogations and investigations that happen at the police department. The case she finds herself involved in is both frightening and dangerous. This is where I kept questioning her actions – how could she willingly put herself in danger like that? But at the same time, we see this incredible strength at character shine through. It’s very strange, but it seems to work.
The characters are so richly developed and the relationships that we see amongst the characters – Hazel and Cole, Hazel and her husband – are all complicated and complex. These all work to make this story so much richer and more engaging and even relatable to a certain extent. And let’s not forget the setting. While Black Harbor is a fictional town in Wisconsin, it could very well be any mid-west town the way the author writes it. It really comes alive on the page, and the way crime and drugs has infested this small town is not unlike other small towns across the country.
This book really captivated me and it’s the type of book that really needs to be read in large chunks so as to not loose the momentum of the story. While it’s a slow-burn at times, the pace does pick up and I loved every second of it. This is definitely a book to keep in mind for when it hits shelves in November and I know for sure that I will be watching to see what comes next from this very talented writer!
