Hello, Transcriber

Aspiring novelist Hazel Greenlee, the narrator of Morrissey’s solid debut, takes a transcription job with the Black Harbor, Wis., police department, hoping to minimize time spent with her domineering husband and inspire her fiction. Hazel knows the impoverished city has a high crime rate but is still shocked when her neighbor’s 26-year-old son, Sam Samson, appears at the precinct and confesses to hiding a body. In typing reports for the investigator on the case, Nik Kole, Hazel learns that Sam allegedly helped drug dealer Tyler Krejarek carry a nine-year-old boy to a dumpster after the child overdosed on Oxycodone in Tyler’s apartment. Tyler then fled. Intrigued, Hazel chats up Nik, who enlists her assistance in an unsanctioned search. Attraction sparks, triggering decisions that endanger Hazel’s marriage, employment, and safety. Despite an overwritten opening and some shaggy plotting, this mystery largely succeeds thanks to its strong sense of place and realistically flawed heroine. Hazel’s thorny relationships provide regular infusions of tension that catapult the tale to a dramatic close. Morrissey is off to a promising start. Agent: Sharon Pelletier, Dystel, Goderich & Bourret. (Nov.)