Neon Fever

There's No Murder in Paradise, Book 3

De: Anna Mocikat

Narrado por: Garrett Kiesel, Cari Favole

There’s no murder in paradise.

But some deaths are too ugly to ignore.

When a young woman falls from a high-rise in Olympias, the case looks like suicide. Homicide detective Siro Ferreira-Nunes isn’t convinced. His instincts tell him it’s murder—and his partner, the cynical Kate Spader, hates that he might be right.

The victim was part of Olympias’ most controversial system: the Companion Program, where citizens legally sell themselves into binding contracts of servitude. Officially, it’s all “choice” and “luxury.” Unofficially, it’s abuse, exploitation, and human trafficking wrapped in corporate branding.

From the neon-soaked alleys of Oldtown’s red-light district to the perfumed penthouses of the elite, Siro and Kate dive into a world of contracts and corruption, where people are property and pleasure is just another commodity. Their investigation uncovers a trail of suspects: a wealthy executive, a washed-up ex-cop turned trafficker, and a mysterious young woman who seems more victim than predator.

But in Olympias, nothing is what it seems. Even as the Guardian Angels—the city’s feared cyborg enforcers—cast their long shadow over the case, Siro and Kate realize they’re not chasing a single killer, but pulling at the threads of a conspiracy that thrives on the city’s darkest desires.

Neon Fever is the explosive follow-up to Neon Nights, a gritty cyber-noir spin-off from the acclaimed Behind Blue Eyes series. It can be listened to as a standalone novel.

Dark, sexy, and razor-sharp, it’s perfect for fans of Altered Carbon and hardboiled detective thrillers.

©2025 Anna Mocikat (P)2026 Anna Mocikat

Great Detectives, Sour Ending

That's not to say the ending sucked, because it didn't. It perfectly illustrates one of the main frustrations for law enforcement in general. I can't say more without giving it away.

As usual, Anna Mocikat delivers another gritty, deep thriller with some very good narrators, which for me makes the story come to life.

As usual, the vivid descriptions and details of the world of the Olympias Conglomerate make these books must-reads for anyone who likes crime stories.

Amazing world building as always! Gritty cyberpunk noir at it's finest!

The author always does an outstanding job and is one of (if not the only) modern author still writing quality cyberpunk. This story series follows two detectives and is a atand alone but exists inside the Behind Blue Eyes universe. All her series in this universe are what a modern Blade Runner and Nuromancer would be.
Cyberpunk 2077 effectively recreated this universe, though these books are far darker, far grittier, and far more engaging. (Fewer chopsticks clipping bugs too) ;)

Eyes Half Shut

This entry in the 'Neon' detective series has an interesting premise - it is Eyes Wide Shut in the Cyberpunk dystopia of Olympias, a mega city in Anna Mocikat's Cyberpunk world.

The resulting story feels like it needed one or two more runs through the edit and refinement stages. My star rating reflects a gesture of encouragement towards the author's overall efforts, rather than a specific score for this installment. For installment-specific information, I have written this lengthy review.



Spoilers follow.



The book opens with its two detectives having very different outlooks and levels of empathy and cynicism towards the situation in Olympias. They have different backgrounds, and this is usually key to creating a certain level of friction and disagreement tempered by the loyalty of police detectives for each other. But these differing perspectives are quickly abandoned and both detectives get on almost exactly the same page within a couple of chapters, losing the potential of interesting dialogues relying on their different perspectives and life experiences.



The murder of the book is initially discounted as a suicide, with the detectives taking informal bets about whether it was or was not a murder. But I kept feeling like I must have missed something. Or maybe the detectives did. I have been tempted to go back and listen to the story again, just to clarify it for myself and make sure I am not misremembering events. The victim fell from a height, but was also described as having been stabbed repeatedly, something which ought to have been clear to everyone on the most cursory preliminary examination at the scene. Something that would have quickly discounted the possibility of suicide.



At several points in the book, it seems the characters encounter situations or dilemmas which are avoidable or easily dealt with using the established technology of the setting. I kept wondering why they didn't make use of their technology to better effect. I felt as I do in many sci-fi stories: That the consequences of a technology in a setting are often accidentally or intentionally overlooked to preserve drama in a crisis.



The story lacks a good action scene and/or an interesting physical confrontation with an antagonist, something I've become accustomed to in the series and this genre in general. This was an unfortunate omission. The one 'climactic' action set piece was not particularly riveting to me, mostly because I felt that the characters in the scene had unexplored options regarding how to defuse the danger of the situation they found themselves in.



The ending of the story embraces the Chinatown style Noir storytelling convention where nothing is really resolved due to the dystopian nature of the setting. This is fine, and I'm not the sort who requires a happy ending. But the lack of a real climax left the resolution somewhat tepid and pedestrian. After finishing the story, I felt very much like someone who had watched a predictable sequence of events unfold, and never felt really engaged with the situation being presented.



I am not discontented at having purchased this issue, but I can't help but feel it could have been more than it was. I really enjoy these detective characters and I enjoy their street-level perspective on the world, but the story had about half the literary potency I'd have hoped for.



For audiobook listeners, the performances are well done. I did feel at one or two points in the story, one performer read another performer's line. It was brief and passed quickly, leaving me to wonder if I'd misheard. I listen to these while driving, so I did not divide my attention by re-playing the section to be sure I'd heard what I thought I'd heard. These potential errors were so fleeting as to not impact my enjoyment of the overall performance.

Ties run deep

Great read if you like cyber noir style books. Good standalone title ,but made better if you've also read the bbe series