Fox and O'Hare is a caper thriller series of books by Janet Evanovich and Lee Goldberg.
Nicolas Fox is a suave conman with a penchant for thrill. Kate O'Hare is the FBI agent tasked with bringing him in. One fateful day, she goes into a men-only community somewhere in Greece just to nab him, only to find out he's now unofficially doing dirty work for the FBI, and she is his partner in crime in said dirty work. Thus begins a saga of pros, cons, fighting fire with fire, international intrigue, and toblerone chocolate.
The series consists of two short stories and seven novels:
- Pros and Cons (2013)
- The Heist (2013)
- The Chase (2014)
- The Shell Game (2014)
- The Job (2014)
- The Scam (2015)
- The Pursuit (2016)
- The Big Kahuna (2019)
- The Bounty (2020)
Fox and O'Hare use the following tools in their adventures:
- Ambiguous Syntax: In The Job The Dragon is references as having been pulled out of the river by the authorities after a fight in a way which makes it somewhat ambiguous if she's dead or just taken prisoner.
- Amoral Attorney: The ponzi schemer in The Heist is being assisted in hiding by his attorney (who is also mentioned as being willing to defend anyone who pays him enough), with that lawyer also not showing much grief when made to think that people have been murdered in front of him as part of a con.
- Badass Driver:
- Three of them (including a war vet who drove convoys and a New York taxi driver) make up Nick's crew in the prequel short story The Shell Game.
- Willie in the main story, who was recruited after being arrested for some antics meant to get her on The Amazing Race.
- Big Good: Kate's boss at the FBI, Carl Jessup, and his associate Fletcher Bolton, who form the series's Big Good Duumvirate as the men she and Nick answer to.
- Blood Knight: Alexis really loves killing anyone who crosses Carter.
- Boxed Crook: Nick fills this role as part of the FBI's secret operation.
- Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Willie is too reckless and horny for her own good, and Boyd can seem a little too obsessed with getting into character, but they're both good at what they do. For instance, in The Pursuit The crew are impersonating scientists for a video security feed, and Boyd is obsessed with acting like there's a sense of urgency and annoying the others over the non-existent project their working on. The Big Bad, watching that feed, marvels about how obvious it is the way their working on something important the way one man keeps looking at the clock and going over the other others to make them work faster, while also being able to detect how much this is pissing off one of the others (Willie) from her body language.
- The Bus Came Back: The Dragon from the first book is removed from the story not too long after appearing when he surrenders to pirates who kidnap his boss and the team and is allowed to leave. But later reappears working casino security in The Scam, recognizes Nick and Kate using different aliases and tells his boss.
- By-the-Book Cop: Kate isn't what you'd call a team player when it comes to breaking the rules. At least, not a willing team player.
- Dastardly Whiplash: Boyd impersonates a gangster version of this archetype (with a Tony Soprano bowling shirt) in the fourth book. The others chide him for how unrealistic and stereotypical it is but he reports that it's more ingrained into the minds of people to expect villains to be like that.
- Designated Girl Fight: In The Chase, Kate O'Hare engages in a midair She-Fu-laced fight with BlackRhino assassin Alexis Poulet as Nick Fox is cracking a safe nearby.
- Digital Piracy Is Evil: At the start of The Heist, Kate is assigned to assist the MPAA in breaking up a piracy ring.
- Genre Savvy: Nick's seen enough television shows to be able to predict the outcome of any given situation, and considering he favors sitcom character names (e.g. Cliff Clavin and Jethro Clampett) for aliases, it shows. One notable example is when he checks Kate out after she sustains some injuries in her aforementioned Designated Girl Fight.Nick: Consider yourself lucky that you don't have a tension pneumothorax.
Kate: What's that?
Nick: I have no idea, but I watch a lot of doctor shows on TV, and you wouldn't believe the number of patients who come into the ER with it. - Gentleman Thief: Let's face it, when it comes to the art of the con Nick could give Arsene Lupin a run for his money, given how smooth and popular with the ladies he is (that is, when the ladies aren't trying to arrest him or worse).
- Laser-Guided Karma: When Alexis tries to snap her neck, Kate snaps hers purely by accident.
- Method Acting: An In-Universe example. Recurring accomplice Boyd Capwell lives and breathes it, to the point where he's willing to go days without brushing his teeth for a mouthwash commercial.
- Mr. Fixit: Tom Underhill, who builds fancy tree houses for rich kids and is the teams most frequently recruited builder of fake sets to impress the bad guy.
- Morally Bankrupt Banker: In the first book, Tom Underhill, one of the accomplices Nick and Kate recruit, was about to have his house taken away by one of these, who'd deliberately tricked him into taking a more precarious mortgage when he had the credit for a low-interest one due to getting a bonus from the bank based on how many subprime mortgages he moved. To make things worse, he's been embezzling from the bank to pay for his online poker losses and wants to foreclose on and sell the house to replace that money. A meeting with Nick puts him in his place, and puts Tom in Nick's debt.
- Neck Snap: One way Alexis disposes of her victims. Also how she carks it when one goes horribly wrong.
- Nightmare Fetishist: The villain in The Job finds his appetite actually improving as he listens to Boyd (in his disguise as a crippled sea dog captain) relating a story about most of his crew being eaten by sharks.
- Not Enough to Bury: Carter Grove is blown up by a missile at the end of The Chase, and very little is left of him when his hideout's remains are searched. Just some teeth and a belt buckle.
- Retired Badass: Kate's dad and his fellow special forces soldiers (who often come int to help out the team) are literal examples of this trope. They include a sniper whose developing cataracts, a Formerly Fit surveillance expert, and a guy with a grenade launcher and a bad hip.
- Serial Escalation: The danger ramps up slowly but surely as the series progresses, to the point where The Pursuit starts with Nick getting kidnapped.
- She Cleans Up Nicely: Kate does this from time to time for her missions, most notably in the final act of The Heist when she has to serve as a honey trap against her will.
- Sweet Polly Oliver: For the arrest attempt that ends in her being drawn into greater intrigue and gets the real plot of the series going, Kate has to disguise herself as a boy so she can get inside the community where Nick's hiding out.
- Ungrateful Bastard: The Dragon in The Job is left tied up by Kate and kills the Mook who finds and unties her due to feeling that he'd seen her in a position of weakness and couldn't be allowed to let anyone else know.
