Hello, Transcriber

I received a digital advance copy of Hello, Transcriber by Hannah Morrissey via NetGalley. Hello, Transcriber is scheduled for release on November 30, 2021.

Hello, Transcriber is the story of Hazel, a woman hired as a transcriber for a police department in Wisconsin. Hazel is married (no longer happily), and seems to be hiding in this Wisconsin location, though we aren’t sure from what. While working one night, a confession arrives at Hazel’s work window, pulling her into both a criminal investigation and a relationship with the officer investigating the crime.

The story is told entirely from Hazel’s point of view, though we get a bit of perspective from other characters through the reports she transcribes for officers involved in the case. Hazel’s relationship with one officer (Kole) is well-developed, and becomes a primary focus for the story. Less well developed are Hazel’s relationships with other people, including her husband. We see their relationship as it exists during the current story, where their relationship contains nothing good. I would have like to see a bit of how they were before, to understand Hazel a bit better. She tells us she loved her husband, but the reader gets no evidence.

I also wanted more of Hazel’s past in general. She hints at huge events from her past that clearly influence what is happening for her int he current story. As a reader, those past events were only hints, not clearly developed in a way that helped explain her current choices.

In terms of setting, I had some difficulties with both the time and place of the story. The story felt as if it were occurring in a small town. Sort of. The small town feel was inconsistent, with some events indicating that we were actually in a city, not a small town at all. I had the same challenge with the time of the story. Overall, the story felt as if it were taking place in the 90s. Yet, technology used in the story made it clear we were in present day. These inconsistencies sometimes pulled me out of the story.

What kept me in the story was the messiness of Hazel. She is definitely flawed, but in ways that are understandable (even when I wanted more of the past that led her to current choices). Her accidental immersion in a criminal investigation, and the questionable choices she makes in regard to her participation in the investigation, worked to keep me invested in the questions of the story.

Overall, Hello, Transcriber was an intriguing crime story focused on a unintentional investigator. While some of the relationships and elements of the setting could have been better, the story as a whole remained engaging.