Hannah Morrissey Books In Order

Publication Order of Black Harbor Books

Hannah Morrissey
Hannah Morrissey graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison where she majored in English with an emphasis in Creative Writing. She grew up in a small northern town and lives near Milwaukee with her husband that heads up the detective bureau, three pugs that sleep beside her as she writes, and a TBR pile which never seems to get any smaller.

Hannah, a three decade survivor of Wisconsin winters, she loves putting her characters (as well as her readers) into bone chilling atmospheres which permeate beyond the page. Naturally her books have carved out a subgenre of their own: “Midwestern Noir”.

Between roles of copywriter and bookseller, she was inspired to write her debut novel as she transcribed reports for her local police department. Far from home in a grim and crime ridden city, it was her job to sit all alone during the dead of night, listen, and type while detectives divulged the darkest secrets of the city. It was there that she realized, that every case was a story, and every story began with the same two words: “Hello, Transcriber”.

The job seems very antiquated, however having used talk-to-text software, she sees why this is still a human job. It’s not a job she’d ever heard of, and had an interesting listing, because you couldn’t be emotionally affected by accounts of trauma or violence. She loved hearing her uncle’s stories, as he was a cop too.

Hannah had been writing books her whole life before this novel had been published. She’s written four books before this one that never got published, but those were all fantasy. While she loves fantasy books, those just were not going anywhere and she wanted this to be more than merely a hobby or some sort of creative outlet.

So she started thinking that maybe this just wasn’t where she needed to be. Maybe she needs to reset and begin looking at the world all around her. She had to hit the pause button and realize what she was doing at this job was really interesting and a bunch of people wanted to know about it.

“Hello, Transcriber” is the first novel in the “Black Harbor” series and was released in 2021. “Hello, Transcriber” is a captivating and compelling mystery suspense debut that features a female police transcriber that goes beyond the limits in order to solve a rather harrowing case.

Every night, as the street lamps shed the sole light on Wisconsin’s most crime-ridden city, Hazel Greenlee (police transcriber) listens while detectives divulge Black Harbor’s gruesome secrets. Hazel, as an aspiring writer, believes that writing a novel could be her one and only ticket to get out of this frozen hellscape. And then her neighbor confesses to hiding the corpse of this overdose victim in some dumpster.

This suspicious death is linked to Candy Man, this notorious drug dealer. Now Hazel has got a front row seat to this investigation and gets captivated by Nikolai Kole, the lead detective. Hazel, intrigued by the prospects of gathering eyewitness intelligence for her novel, joins Kole in exploring Black Harbor’s darkest side.

While the investigation unfolds, she learns exactly how far she will go for a good story, even if this means ruining her marriage and luring this murderer to her while she plunges deeper into this city that she is desperate to claw her way out of.

This is a haunting and edgy crime novel with a world weary and complex heroine at its core. Hannah writes with razor edged prose, passion, and most importantly of all, authenticity. Since she’s a former police transcriber herself, she knows the criminals and cops and those that bridge these worlds between.

Hannah delivers an atmospheric, dark, and compelling debut novel by a unique talent. Readers were hooked in right off the bat and couldn’t think of much else until they had finished reading it.

Just as poetic as it is suspenseful, this delivers a refreshing slant on the police procedural. With intriguing and layered characters, evocative prose, and a setting that’s so vivid it will infiltrate your dreams, Hannah Morrissey firmly establishes herself as an exciting new voice in literary suspense.

“The Widowmaker” is the second first novel in the “Black Harbor” series and was released in 2022. A wealthy family shrouded in a scandal, a woman with a dark past, and a detective handed the task of solving an impossible cold case.

Ever since Clive Reynolds, business mogul, vanished twenty years prior, the name “Reynolds” has become synonymous with “mystery” and “murder”. And now, a down on her luck photographer Morgan Mori, having been lured by this cryptic note, goes back home to Black Harbor and into the web of their double lives and family secrets. That same night she photographs the Reynolds holiday get together, and becomes a witness to the homicide of one cop which triggers discovering a long buried clue.

This could finally be the one thing to crack open this chilling cold case, and Investigator Ryan Hudson has got the opportunity to prove himself as lead detective. If he could only stop allowing his need to solve his partner’s recent murder from distracting him. However while Morgan exposes some of her own dark demons, could her own sordid history be the key to unlocking more than just one mystery?

This one is tough to put down, and even tougher to quit thinking about, with characters that are so fully formed, they step right off of the page, crawl into you, and stick right to your bones. This one is moody and dark, with some characters that feel heartbreakingly real. Fans of the novel found this to be moody, mesmerizing, and filled with menace, with an instantly compelling lead character and an unforgettable cast of characters. It’s a propulsive look at secrets, desire, and family, and it’s beautifully written.

This novel confirms Hannah’s status as one of the bright new voices in crime fiction. It’s an unflinching look at a couple of damaged people attempting to do right in a world filled with wrong, told with scalpel sharp prose with a poet’s eye for detail.