BOOK REVIEW: Scarlet Fever by David Stever

Scarlet Fever: A Crime Thriller

by David Stever (Goodreads Author)

Kindle Edition, 246 pages

Published March 5th 2019 by TCK Publishing

Goodreads synopsis:

He’s a hard-drinking ex-cop with nothing to prove. She’s a gorgeous mystery woman with everything to lose. 

She needs his help. He just needs HER. 

The mobsters won’t know what hit them. 

Private investigator Johnny Delarosa’s seen it all. Cheating spouses, greedy embezzlers, insurance scammers—it’s all part of the game to him. But when a drop-dead gorgeous redheaded mystery woman walks into his bar and drops a $20,000 retainer in his lap, he knows he’s met his match. 

Claire Dixon wants the hard-drinking Johnny to find $2 million that was stolen from her mob-wife mother thirty years ago, but the money is only half the mystery. When every lowlife in Port City suddenly comes out of the woodwork to claim their share of the take, suddenly Claire’s nowhere to be found—and the body count starts to climb. 

With the help of a bright young amateur sleuth, can Johnny crack the case before the streets of his beloved Port City run scarlet? 

With a wink and a nod to the hard-boiled detective fiction of yesteryear, David Stever offers up a heaping helping of old-school noir sure to satisfy every thriller lover, even genre purists. Scarlet Fever is the first book in the Johnny Delarosa Mysteries. 

Fans of Sunburn by Laura Lippman, Mr. Mercedes by Stephen King, The Woman in the Window by A.J. Finn, and The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler are sure to love this book. 

This book is for anyone who likes reading about: 

Crime fiction 

Hard-boiled detectives 

Femme fatales 

Gangsters and mob bosses 

Mysteries and thrillers 

***

4 stars

This book does remind me of a modern day version of 1930’s classic detective fiction. There was the red-headed Veronica Lake-esque sexy lady who comes into the one-time detective turned PI’s office and makes him an offer he can’t refuse. Help her find her missing two million. Of course the mob is involved and he can’t really trust her to do what he says or to try and keep herself safe. I mean, that is totally the way the story goes.

But Johnny, even though he lives in the 21st century, is not a master of the technological aspects of it. Then in walks his savior…. a blond bombshell in the image of what I image is Jean Harlow. She is sweet, naive master PI in the making. And what she lacks with her innocent facade, she makes up for in computer expertise.

This story was a really fun ride and I invite everyone to take a gander at it. It is Detective Fiction of Yesteryear made new.

I received this as an ARC (Advanced Reader Copy) in return for an honest review. I thank NetGalley, the publisher and the author for allowing me to read this title.