Review – Hello, Transcriber by Hannah Morrissey

I received this book for free from the publisher. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Hello, Transcriber by Hannah Morrissey
Published by Minotaur Books on November 30, 2021
Genres: Fiction / Thrillers / Suspense
Pages: 304
Format: ARC
Source: Publisher
Goodreads
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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.

I liked this book! I picked this book up because I was intrigued by the idea of a mystery novel featuring a police transcriber. I am always looking for something that is a little different and I think that this one fits that description. I was hooked by the story early on and I couldn’t wait to see how things would work out in the end. I thought that this was a fantastic debut novel.

Hazel is starting a new job as a police transcriber. She is an incredibly fast typist so it seems like it is the perfect fit and it might even help her with some ideas for the book she wants to write. While she is still in training, she sees a man confess to hiding a body at her workplace window while holding a child’s finger. That man happens to live on the other side of the duplex she lives in with her husband. Before long, she is drawn into the investigation and grows closer to the lead detective. Nikolai Kole. Before long, the case gets more complicated than she ever imagines and her life has been turned upside down.

I can’t say that I ever really liked Hazel but there was never a moment that I wasn’t eager to see what she would do next. Some of her decisions made me cringe and I knew that regardless of the outcome of the case, her life would never be the same. The mystery was complex enough to keep me guessing until the very end. This story is rather dark and I felt like things could go wrong at any moment. I found this book to be incredibly well written and I was glued to the pages until I reached the end of this story.

I would recommend this book to others. I found this to be a very well-done dark and melancholic mystery. I will definitely be looking out for future works by this talented author.

I received an advanced review copy of this book from Minotaur Books (St. Martin’s Press).

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