Book Review for The Unlucky Ones by Hannah Morrissey

 Black Harbor #4

The Unlucky Ones by Hannah Morrissey

Published:  March 25, 2025 by Minotaur Books

Genre:   Mystery Thriller

Taken from Goodreads:  A police transcriber-turned-novelist returns to Black Harbor to help solve the case of her ex-husband’s murder in the newest riveting Black Harbor mystery by acclaimed author Hannah Morrissey.

Black Harbor is a tinderbox. Temperatures and violent crime have both risen to all-time highs, a new drug razes the city, and the scene to which Sergeant Nikolai Kole responds is anything but a rote homicide. In the back of a clubhouse lies a body wrapped in garbage bags and doused in bleach.

It isn’t just any body. Tommy Greenlee, the ex-husband of Kole’s former lover, Hazel, has been shot several times and left for dead. What’s more…the killer left what appears to be a calling card.

Elsewhere, Hazel is haunted by her memories of Black Harbor. Lured there after eight years, she returns to find out who killed Tommy and why. Now back in Kole’s orbit, their love affair can hardly pick up where it left off. They both used each other to their own ends before, which begs the question: would they do it again?

With the atmosphere growing more volatile by the second, Hazel and Kole call a truce, and as they work together to solve this murder, they will not only unearth Black Harbor’s deepest, darkest secrets—they’ll each have to face their own.

My Thoughts:  The Unlucky Ones is the fourth book in the series and the second one I have read. Each book contains its own story; while the characters and setting of Black Harbor remain consistent, the mystery in each book is unique. The relationships between the characters are easy to follow, even without having read the first two books in the series. The different dynamics between the characters are quickly discernible.

I did not feel an urgency to finish this book but the pace was very comfortable and the storyline was easy to follow.  I enjoyed the mystery and am intrigued with Hazel and Kole’s relationship.   At times, I felt the story drag on a bit and found myself skimming the paragraphs a bit.  

I would recommend this book to any mystery thriller reader looking for a good police drama.   I felt like I was reading an episode of a police tv show. 

Thank you Minotaur Books for a copy of the book in exchange for my honest review.

Add to your MUST-READ list on Goodreads

Purchase your own copy on Amazon

Meet theAuthor (taken from her website):  Hannah Morrissey is the author of the Black Harbor suspense series which includes Hello, Transcriber, The Widowmaker, and When I’m Dead. A three-decade survivor of Wisconsin winters, Hannah enjoys putting her characters (and readers) in bone-chilling atmospheres that permeate beyond the page. Naturally, her books have carved out their own sub-genre
of “Midwestern Noir.” 

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

Hannah 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 now lives near Milwaukee with her husband, three pugs, and a TBR pile that never seems to get any smaller.