Hannah Morrissey
The Unlucky Ones
A police transcriber-turned-novelist returns to Black Harbor to help solve the case of her ex-husband’s murder in the next riveting Black Harbor, featuring the return of characters from Hannah Morrissey’s breakout debut, Hello, Transcriber.
The Writer’s Dossier 12/24/2024 — The Hannah Morrissey interview
The writing spark
DOSSIER: With your latest novel, WHEN I’M DEAD, your main character is a medical examiner working a case that hits close to home when something even closer to home happens. Did that second story line with Chloe develop after you were already writing, or did you plan on it the whole time?
MORRISSEY: It’s wild to look back at WHEN I’M DEAD and recall the spark that started it all, which was, simply, that I wanted to write a main character who was a medical examiner. From there, I went about imagining how to trap her in an impossible situation: her daughter, Chloe’s, best friend is murdered, and now Chloe is missing. The more she investigates, the more she’ll uncover that perhaps Chloe and the murdered girl weren’t all that great of friends after all. So, is Chloe a victim or a suspect?
To answer your question, yes, the second storyline with Chloe happened after, but they’re not quite mutually exclusive. I’d say it’s more like a one-two punch, which is how I usually start my books—start with a character and make their life hell.
There’s a cardinal rule
DOSSIER: When we met at the Midwest Mystery Conference, you crushed your panel with some great lines that still stand out in my mind. One of them is, “Give your reader what they want, just not what they expect.” How do you do that in your books, and how important is that idea to your overall process?
MORRISSEY: Thank you! This is one of the cardinal rules of my writing process, and I think it’s really important for the thriller/mystery genre. Readers are smart, and as authors, we’ve got to stay at least two steps ahead of them. I often think, “If I were reading this, what would I want to happen?” And then I add a twist.
A writing lair
DOSSIER: When and where do you do your best writing? In a coffee shop, on a sofa surrounded by pugs, or a hectic room with headphones on?
MORRISSEY: I recently transformed a whole living room in my house into my writing lair. Black walls, black ceiling, bookshelves stuffed to the gills, and two giant murder boards. It’s quite dark in here—just the way I like it—but I’m never alone. My three pugs are always with me, and since they snore (I’m looking at you, Griswold), I invested in some noise canceling headphones.
She worked for the police
DOSSIER: THE UNLUCKY ONES comes out in March from Minotaur Books and goes back to a police transcriber character from your breakout debut. How long were you doing police transcription in real life before you thought, there are a lot of great novel ideas going on here!?
MORRISSEY: That’s true. HELLO, TRANSCRIBER is inspired by my time as a police transcriber—a job I did for three and a half years. I worked the night shift and absolutely loved it. For anyone who isn’t familiar, as a transcriber, my main responsibility was to wear a headset and listen to detectives dictate their reports. I typed everything verbatim, and the cases ranged from robberies to homicides to fraud, controlled drug purchases, search warrants, you name it.
At the time I started at the police department, I was actually recalibrating with my writing. I used to write fantasy, but wasn’t getting anywhere with landing an agent. I think I was about two three weeks in when I started jotting down things I heard and saw, and HELLO, TRANSCRIBER began to take shape.
Even more on the way
DOSSIER: Do you have any breaking news or special announcement you’d like to disclose in your Dossier?
MORRISSEY: For sure! Now that I’ve spent some time in Black Harbor, I’m excited to announce a standalone thriller, SCREAM CITY, which will publish in 2026! Set against a backdrop of Milwaukee’s oldest neighborhood, it’s about the granddaughter of the infamous “Cream City Killer” and the son of the cop who arrested him as they team up to untangle a series of copycat killings.
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