Just not for me. I had a hard time connecting with the characters, location, and plot. cw - mentions of suicide

Thank you to Netgalley, the publisher and the author, for an ARC of this book, in exchange for an honest review.
The synopsis of this book sounded intriguing to me so I requested a copy to read.
Unfortunately, I have tried reading this book on 2 separate occasions and during this 2nd attempt, I have
decided to stop reading this book
and state that this book just wasn't for me.
I wish the author, publisher and all those promoting the book much success and connections with the right readers.

A truly compulsive read! This thriller had ominous, creepy overtones that kept me turning the pages.

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The first person narrator is a mixed bag: a young, very pretty, aspiring writer with a college degree who still comes across as a wet behind the ears "podunk" - as she is often fondly referred to by her illicit love interest, Inspector Nikolai Kole.

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Hazel's marriage is on the rocks. She married young (at sixteen if I remember correctly!) and her sex life is literally too painful for words (and downright brutal if you ask me!) While I truly could not put this book down, there were elements of this story that needed fleshing out. What was the traumatic incident that created this psychosomatic response in Hazel? Why did her mother leave her father, abandoning her young children in the process? And that MAJOR twist during the last few chapters of the novel literally came out of nowhere (no spoilers here.) The author did manage to add spice and interest to several well-worn tropes, but I was often left wanting more backstory or details.

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If this author tires of writing thrillers, she would do well in the romance line: Nikolai Kole is your typical drop-dead gorgeous loner SIU cop who is unattainable - that is, until he meets young Hazel. Their encounters usually had me holding my breath - they were sizzling hot!

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At a few points in the novel I feared for Hazel's sanity. Her character became incredibly paranoid and even doubted Kole's identity/existence. Hazel admits to her sister Elle that she is not a very nice person, and yet the author creates several scenarios where the reader is induced to feel sorry for poor, put-upon Hazel. The ending had some major "about-faces" that again had me doubting Hazel's sanity or the intended direction of this story. I wondered if these out of the blue reversals or sudden character wheel-arounds could be attributed to an abandoned plot line or last minute editing? The last third of the novel was not as emotionally compelling as the first two-thirds, but the graphic action scenes kept my attention riveted to the very last page.

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Did I guess the culprit? Hard not to: there were so few suspects left alive at the end of this story. This is the author's second novel. She writes well, but she shares the same affliction that many young authors suffer from: a love affair with their dictionaries. I can throw no stones because I love a new, intriguing word and I used to memorize a new word every day in my teens. The problem with including these intriguing new words in a novel is that you interrupt the flow of the narrative and risk alienating your reader. I stopped looking up the many "tantalizing new words" towards the middle: they really didn't add to the story and I just got plain tired of having to reread the paragraph to put the unknown word in context. Hannah Morrissey hopes to impress and entertain her readers. For the most part, she certainly did that, but throwing in those numerous "fifty-cent words" - as I like to call them - lost her a rating point with me.

I suspect that this author's next book will be even better than this one: she certainly knows how to grab the readers' attention and keep it! Four out of five well-deserved stars for great story-telling. - she just needs to get out of her own way and do what she does very well: tell a gripping story. Despite these minor issues, I highly recommend this one.

Triggers: Suicide Ideation; descriptions of extreme violence; infidelity

Hazel Greenlee, an aspiring writer, begins her new job as Transcriber at the local Black Harbor Police Department. Her night shifts are going well, the police are happy with her work, and she’s getting along with her coworkers. That all changes one night when Hazel looks out the window and sees her neighbour outside writing a terrifying message on the glass. This message reignites the hunt for the Candy Man, a drug dealer who has been selling to kids for years.

Soon after, Hazel becomes entangled in the case. She also becomes extremely infatuated with Investigator Nikolai Kole, the man leading the search for this notorious drug dealer.

I would have liked this novel more if Hazel and Kole had kept things professional. Her crush on Kole was very eye-roll-inducing. Although, it’s not hard to understand why Hazel would turn to Kole since her husband is so toxic and controlling.

I found the writing style to be whimsical maybe even slightly overwritten at times. Hazel wants to be a writer, so it makes sense, I suppose. There were some twists that I did not see coming. However, in my opinion, the cringe romance completely overshadowed the case.

But, overall, this book was very atmospheric. I could feel the cold, lonely nights and days through the (ebook) pages. I also think the author did a great job depicting depression and how hard it can be to break the cycle of abuse.

Thank you to Minotaur Books/St. Martin’s Press for the arc via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

https://booksandwheels.com

Hazel Greenlee is broken. Her dreams of being a published author seem distant, she’s living in a Wisconsin’s most crime ridden city, and her marriage is less than stellar. When she gets a new job as a transcriber for the local police station, Hazel is not only dragged into a gruesome murder but is forced to come clean to herself about how suffocated she feels in her life.

This is not your typical crime/detective novel. While the story ultimately follows a crime, the path to getting it solved isn’t our main focal point. Instead Hazel’s will to live is what drives this story. Morrissey has been incredibly successful in make this a majorly depressing book. The melancholy tones mixed in with the dark, gritty, and hopeless atmosphere give readers such a vivid depiction of the town. I could feel Hazel’s unhappiness through the pages.

All of our characters felt realistic too much especially our main character Hazel. While Hazel is our only narrator, Morrissey did a fabulous job of making all of our supporting characters vivid and relatable. She also gives all of our characters a tremendous amount of character growth which is amazing considering the book is just over 300 pages.

I couldn’t decide between 3 stars or 4 stars for this one but ultimately decided on a 3.5 rating, rounded up to 4 for Goodreads. I enjoyed the buildup and the bit of suspense within the story, but it was a little slow pacing wise and the description while beautifully written could get wordy . I’d still highly recommend this to read though, just know it’s a slow burn and more atmospheric than plot driven.

Trigger warnings: depression, suicide.

Hello, Transcriber comes out November 30, 2021. Huge thank you to Minotaur books for my advanced copy in exchange for my honest review. If you liked this review please let me know either by commenting below or by visiting my Instagram @speakingof_books.

I absolutely loved this book. Anyone who loves a good thriller that has some twists and turns that you would NOT expect would enjoy this read. The story follows Hazel, who is from "up north" but ends up in this crime dominated city called Black Harbor, with her husband. Her relationship is not in the best way when we meet her at the beginning of the book, and it only gets worse. However, she is hired as a police interview transcriber and this is where our story begins.
There are a series of murders, and crime, related to drugs in the area.
I thought the story was very well fashioned, giving the feel of a grimy underbelly of society to most of the places where Hazel was forced to find herself. I also think that there was a good turn of events at the end that was unexpected and led me to really appreciate the author's choices.
This book was very well written and if you want something intriguing and that you can't put down, pick this book up.

This ebook was provided by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I really enjoyed this mystery suspense debut that centered around a police transcriber. In a dime a dozen detective stories out there, this character was a refreshing and new take on the behind the scenes lens of police work. If you go in knowing that this is more mystery than suspense, you’ll enjoy it. Also, bonus for a little office will they / won’t they romance that helped add to the story.

My nutshell analysis? Five stars for creativity (how many books have you read in which the main character is a crackerjack professional transcriber of police reports?) and four - once in a while, three - for execution. Overall, that's not a bad score, and I'd call this a pretty good book. In fact, it was the transcriber part that got my attention in the first place; I really warmed up when I learned that Hazel Greenlee could type more than 100 words per minute virtually error-free. That's because, back in the day, I could do the same (on a manual typewriter, no less).

Hazel and her husband, Tommy, have moved to a duplex in a backwoods place called Black Harbor. Here, Tommy can practice his survivalist skills, drink beer and gaslight Hazel to his heart's content. But Hazel's heart isn't content at all; she'd love to ditch the town - and maybe Tommy with it - but she settles in by handling transcription duties on the night shift while she tries to write the novel that she hopes will be her ticket to freedom.

Soon after she starts the job, a man confesses to putting the body of a young drug overdose victim in a dumpster - a death police believe is connected to a local drug dealer known as Candy Man. The lead detective is Nikolai Kole, a local "boy" who's developed a reputation for stepping too close to the unethical procedures line at least once too often. Hazel is intrigued - at first because she's trying to follow the "write what you know" maxim and everything that's happening is providing fodder for her novel - and later because Nik himself is an irresistible temptation.

Hazel is, however, walking a dangerous tightrope; she's got a secret that, if revealed, could result in losing her job. And here's where the "you've got to be kidding me" moment hit: there's no way Nik's investigation - assuming he's doing it properly - wouldn't discover it right away. For that matter, anybody in the police department would know unless she lied on her job application.

As all this is going on, Hazel is helping her sister Elle - a popular "influencer" (seems like every book I've read this year has a character in this relatively new profession) - get ready for her engagement party and wedding. Details of Elle's life come as a big reveal late in the story, but I honestly wondered why it was even there - it's not like it was posing any problem for anyone in the book, including Elle. But it is a timely topic, so maybe it was just to show that someone can go through what Elle did and have a successful life.

As tensions between Hazel and Nik and Hazel and Tommy heat up (for different reasons, of course) the body of another young person is found, followed by the murder of someone that hits closer to home. As she tries to decide where her own life is headed, Hazel begins to suspect that some people aren't who they seem. In her mind, she's become the victim, and the only thing that really matters is getting out of the mess she's helped create for herself.

Overall, it's an intriguing premise and an engrossing story. I thank the publisher, via NetGalley, for the opportunity to read and review a pre-release copy.

Hello Transcriber: A Novel
Hannah Morrissey
November 30, 2021

It´s Black Harbor, Wisconsin, a rural town by a huge, polluted lake. Hazel and Tommy Greenlee moved here from Chicago. Tommy is an aquatic ecologist. He spends his days exploring different parts of the black abyss with test strips and sieves. He and his partner Cam are working for the government trying to discover the cause of the lakes ruin. They moved to the borough two years ago. Things have not improved for Hazel since. Tommy spends his spare time with friends fishing and hunting. He brings home the game and wild vegetables he finds growing in the country. It all tastes of the chemicals that plague the land and water. Hazel decides itś time to find a job, get a life of her own. She heads to the police department for an interview with locals regarding an ad she found; looking for a Transcriber. Since she has the ability to copy transcription notes at amazing speed, she thinks this would be the job for her.
After talking with committees, then individuals, she finds herself being given a tour of the department with explanations of what the job requires. The other transcribe, Mona, gives her a sad, dark, description of the work demands. Regardless, Hazel accepts the position and begins the job on Monday. As she sits to listen to her first report, she is nervous but follows as the recording begins: ¨ Ḧello Transcriber¨.
The reports are print outs of detectiveś actions for the day. With her typing speed, the write-up goes quickly. The information is frightening, sad and alarming. The town has drug problems. Lately a dealer known as ¨The Candyman¨ has been selling drugs mixed with poison. Children have died.
This latest book by Hannah Morrissey is a dark, suspenseful tale. It was almost too much but it was compelling to read. Hello Transcriber: A Novel published by Minotaur Books will be published on November 30, 2021. I appreciate their allowing me to read and review this novel via NetGalley. It is not for those who prefer a cozy mystery. It is a literary read that is very well written, just frightening in its reality. No fake monsters, only human ones.

I really enjoyed this novel from Hannah Morrissey.

We follow the life of Hazel, stuck in a marriage that that is almost borderline abusive, in the town of Black Harbor - a crime ridden small town in Wisconsin. She takes a job as a transcriber for the local police department, working nights. She wants to be a writer, and hopes to use her experiences as the plot of a book.

When her neighbor confesses to hiding a body, Hazel has a front row seat to the ongoing murder investigation. As she transcribes the police reports, she hears all the details of the case, involving a suspected drug dealer known as 'The Candy Man". She becomes infatuated with the lead detective, and finds herself in dangerous situations.

I found the novel very atmospheric - I could feel the despair in this dreary town with its frequent suicides, few jobs and drug crimes. I understood why Hazel wanted to find a way out of this place with her writing. I liked the way she played with words and phrases during her day - making notes of sentences that would work in her book..

How far will she go in the end, to find the killer, and get the story?

I look forward to reading more from this author.

Hazel, a police report transcriber, gets caught up in a murder investigation in Black Harbor, a once prosperous town in Wisconsin, with a high crime & suicide rate. This book drew me in at the very beginning with its lyrical writing and kept me in its grip with a compelling mystery/thriller and soul-searching. I was constantly surprised where the author took Hazel on her up & down spiral through-out the book.

I loved how the author included the actual police transcriptions into the story and her vivid description of the town brought it to life. This is a underlying tension throughout the book from many avenues & the ending was a perfect fit for the story.

I recommend this to all who likes mysteries dark and gritty mysteries.

Great premise but wow what an uninviting protagonist. Hazel (an awful name, depressing in itself) is a grossly inadequate person who once walked off a job at a community college because her sister made a disparaging remark about community colleges. (Huh? That's supposed to be something a real person would do?) Hazel arrives with her husband to Black Harbor, his home town, an economically depressed and crime-ridden city. Her neuroses multiply. The first time she jogs over the river bridge she has to sacrifice a trinket in a superstitious effort to avoid the compulsion to jump.

Hazel's husband is a civil servant yet his salary isn't enough to afford even a modest house. Instead they live in a very old half- double beside an odd old man and his odder grown son in the other half, and so Hazel takes a job as a police transcriptionist on the night shift, ostensibly because she needs money. Why a night job when her typing rate is 111 with 98% accuracy? Don't law firms, hospitals, and larger businesses (that one would imagine would pay better) need transcriptionists on the day shift? And why has Hazel's husband, who is certainly an educated man, become an extravagantly overwritten stereotypical gun-toting rube?

Maybe these questions are answered later in the book but I confess that didn't read far enough to find out. Hazel is such an unpalatable person that I was not enticed by the promise of a mystery thriller.

Unfortunately I am not gripped enough by this story; I find my mind wandering as I'm reading therefore I am going to have to put it aside as a DNF - or, at least, as a hibernation

Hello Transcriber by Hannah Morrissey

This is a captivating, mystery suspense, featuring a female police transcriber, who goes beyond the limits to solve a harrowing case.

This book gives us an inside look to the fellow officers Ian police station. Many intriguing characters. Main character is not happy with her life and reaches out to change it. This story contains much suspense and murder. I recommend this book

Thanks to Net Galley for sending me an advanced reader’s copy for my review..

This was just not the novel I was hoping for. As the summary suggests, I looked forward to seeing crime and murders from a different point of view - the transcriber. But adultery and drug dealing took over the plot lines so much that I almost felt cheated by my expectations. None of the characters were likable and I really couldn't find a reason to care for any of their situations. I needed to be sympathetic to Hazel but the author never gave me reason to. Her early actions were detestable and unreasonable in my opinion. Overall, the author's voice is very readable. I would be open to reading more from Morrissey but I cannot recommend this title. Thank you to Minotaur Books and Netgalley for the ARC.

I have a hard time articulating any cohesive thoughts on this one, so instead I'll provide a list of what did and did not work for me:

What Worked:
-A nosy protagonist who can't help butting into an investigation she has no business being involved with.
-The first 30% of the book kept me flipping pages like crazy

What Didn't Work:
-The dynamic between Hazel and Tommy
-The dynamic between Hazel and Kole
-The predictability
-The "disjointedness" of the plot
-The ending

On the one hand, I think this would be a great book for people who are looking to dip their toe into thrillers (it's possible I read too many and that's why I predicted "whodunnit"), but on the other hand, it's perhaps too dark to be an "intro to thrillers."

I wish I had more items to put in the "What Worked" column, but I'm afraid this one just wasn't for me. In any case, many thanks to NetGalley, St. Martin's Press, and Hannah Morrissey for an advanced eARC in exchange for my honest review.

This mystery/suspense follows Hazel as she starts her new job as a transcriber for Black Harbor's police department. Her duties are to sit in a room five nights a week and type up and file any reports that the other officers have dictated and uploaded into the system - basically a perfect job for an aspiring author who can type 111 wpm. Soon after starting, however, her next door neighbor confesses to hiding a body of an overdose victim and Hazel gets pulled into the case both by the close proximity of her neighbor and also by the handsome lead detective - Nik Kole. As the investigation unfolds, Nik and Hazel grow closer and cross lines they can't uncross. As more bodies turn up, Hazel starts connecting the dots and finds the link to the deaths may be closer than she thought.

TW/CW: suicide, drug use, drug overdose, child death, animal death, infidelity, domestic abuse

[I'd also like to note that one of the characters in this book is transgender and there is scene where another character is remembering the trans character before they came out as trans and used the trans character's deadname when referring to that character in the past. They never say the deadname aloud, it is all in their internal monologue. The characters have a healthy and accepting relationship in the present day so the deadnaming isn't done with malicious intent but I did just want to mention it because it could be triggering for trans readers. Also, I did read an ARC so there's a chance this might be fixed for the final copy.]

The atmosphere and setting for this book is absolutely the star of the show. The story takes place in Black Harbor, Wisconsin - a fictional place that is described as being Wisconsin's most crime-ridden city. The descriptions we get of the city are centered on the high crime rate, high rate of drug abuse, and run-down infrastructure. It is not a hopeful place, especially not in winter when this story takes place. Hazel's life at home isn't much better - living with her husband in a rundown duplex that she often dreads going home to. The descriptions we get are gritty and despondent and it is mentioned multiple times that Black Harbor is not a place people want to be. Morrissey does a really great job of giving us a good amount of description and world building while not dragging down the pace of the story. This story taking place in Wisconsin, in winter, and with Hazel working the night shift means we see very little sunlight (actual and metaphorical). The setting and atmosphere feel like they're ready made for a limited TV series on HBO. Fans of the Nordic Noir subgenre would feel at home with the atmosphere of this book.

I really enjoyed the character work Morrissey does with Hazel, but found the secondary characters to be a little flat. Hazel is our main character and the story is told in first person POV so we are really settled in her head as the plot unfolds. I found Hazel to be a very well rounded character who felt like a real person - she's flawed in realistic ways and has a pretty in depth history and backstory that is slowly revealed as the plot progresses. I really liked to see the way she would make decisions and rationalize her actions. I did find that sometimes these inner monologues would run a bit long and I would want to get back to the action of the investigation. The cast of secondary characters were pretty well established, but there were a few times where it felt like they would blend together. It might just be a personal reading quirk but if a side character has a name and has more than a two line conversation with the main character, I'm thinking they're going to be important to the plot in some way. There were many characters who did pop up multiple times in important moments but there were also enough ancillary characters who never really came back into the story. This led me to have a general feeling of the cast of side characters to be pretty wide, but not very deep. For example, we meet a good number of the other detectives but she really only interacts, in any meaningful way, with Nik. I was expecting more out of these different characters than I ended up getting and so it made the side characters, as a whole, feel a bit under developed. Again, that might just be a personal issue and I think the characters Hazel does interact with on numerous occasions are pretty well developed and interesting so maybe my expectations were just a little too high.

The pacing and plot balance was where I had my main issues with the book. For the first half, I really thought this was going to be a 5-star read. The pacing and reveals were spot on, I loved how we were getting layers revealed in Hazel's personal life as well as moving forward in the investigation. There were some spot-on reveals and great building of tension that I was excited to see how everything would come together. Then, at about the halfway mark, the pacing really slowed down and lost me. After some reflection and re-reading, I figured out my problem was that after the halfway mark, we leave the drug investigation for a while and focus instead on Hazel and her personal life. Hazel is our main character and we've been following her POV for the whole book so it would make sense that when her personal life starts having issues that we'd be following along as she navigated those issues. However, Hazel had been having trouble in her personal life for the whole first half of the book and we were still able to flip back and forth in both plot lines just fine. But when we leave the investigation on pause, the story goes from being a mystery/suspense to basically a domestic drama/thriller. I think the domestic side was well written, but it was such a large shift from the narrative of the beginning half that it ended up making the book feel really disconnected. When we do, eventually, get back into the investigation thread it, again, felt really disconnected and jarring. On paper, I can see why Hazel had to focus on her personal life, but from a reading experience it made the pacing really slow down and then made the narrative feel not as smoothly connected. I found the first half to be really well balanced between the detective investigation plot and the personal life issues plot and I think if the book was able to keep that balance throughout the whole book, it would have felt much more like a cohesive story.

The mystery and investigation elements were mostly spot on for me but there were a few times I wished certain aspects were really brought more to the forefront. There are two specific plot threads that I really wish were further explored. I could tell by the way they kept getting brought up that they would be important to the overall story (and they were) but I think they could have been much better utilized to also ramp up the emotional tension in the story. Both of these plot threads have some pretty big emotional ramifications for Hazel but there was a bit of a gap, for me, between the buildup of these points and the outcome. I thought having her be a transcriber was an excellent choice and I think it was used well as a lens to explore the detective side of things without having this feel like a typical police procedural - we get the information that the police searched someone's house but we don't need to actually be there with the police searching, for example. I thought the investigation made logical sense and there weren't really any big solutions that came about by accident. I liked how Hazel was an active participant in the investigation and wasn't just being pulled along by Nik. I do think the mystery aspect was lessened by the investigation plot being basically dropped in the middle in favor for the domestic drama side of things to take over. I read this book in 2 sittings over 2 days but when we do get back to the mystery investigation aspect at about the 75% mark, I had almost forgotten about that thread so it took me a while to get back into that mindset. I think the ending felt a bit too convenient for my personal liking and I had to suspend my disbelief a smidge. I do like where Hazel, as a character, ends up at the end and her character growth through the book was really the highlight for me.

Overall, I really liked this book but had some issues in the second half. Great characterization with Hazel, good initial balance of the different sources of conflict in the story, and well built investigation. I do wish the different elements were better blended in the second half, but I'd be excited to read more of Morrissey's work in the future - especially more character driven stories.

Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the ARC in exchange for review

Expected publication date is November 30, 2021

Hello, Transcriber is a sad, depressing, intense, suspenseful novel that I could not stop reading. Hazel seems miserable in her life. Even contemplates jumping off a bridge. Her husband is uncaring and her town has the highest crime rate in the state. Then she gets a job transcribing police notes. Suddenly her life has more meaning and she has hope again. Her involvement in the investigation of dying kids leads to her taking risks and trusting others. I loved how fast this book went and the unexpected turns it took. I will definitely read more frim this author.

I will be purchasing this copy for my patrons. I think a lot of them will enjoy it! I personally found the main character frustrating, and the writing overly detailed. Hazel isn't a particular compelling character, but I can see how the thrill of the mystery and the twists will keep a reader going!

I had such high hopes for this book. It’s set in a period of history I love. However, I found that this story dragged and was painful to read. Rarely do I ever have to force myself not just to pay attention and retain what I’m reading (instead of the grocery list, laundry schedule, what needs to be done around the house etc etc ) an definitely not having to force myself to finish something. Unfortunately, this was that novel for me.

Thank you to #NetGalley, the publisher, and the author Hannah Morrissey for providing me with an electronic arc in exchange for my honest and unbiased opinion.