Stone Cold Fox

Stone Cold Fox is a thriller novel and the first novel by WGA-award-nominated screenwriter and author Rachel Koller Croft. Since publishing Stone Cold Fox in 2024, Koller Croft has also published We Love the Night Life, which is also a thriller novel. Stone Cold Fox centers on the life of Bea, the daughter of a con artist, as she tries to penetrate the wealthiest circles in New York City. As a thriller, the novel revolves around the twists and turns of Bea’s struggle to convince her boyfriend, Collin Case, to marry her, while also dodging the efforts of Collin’s best friend, Gale, to derail Bea’s plans. Bea’s narrative is punctuated by memories of her childhood with her unnamed mother, who seduced and married different men for money, power, and fun, dragging Bea from place to place without a sense of security. As an adult, Bea’s desire to fit into the Case family is driven by a need for new-found security and potentially familial love. Koller Croft defines Bea’s journey with themes of The Struggle of Identity Construction in a Materialistic Society, The Consequences of Deception and Manipulation, and The Value of Wealth and Social Status, showing how the lives of the super-wealthy are fraught with complications that can even become life-threatening. The novel has received praise from best-selling authors Julie Clark, Samantha Downing, Laura Hankin, Eliza Jane Brazier, and Liv Stratman.

This guide uses the 2024 Berkeley, Penguin Random House edition of the text.

Content Warning: This novel depicts child abuse, violence, and substance misuse. The text also refers to sexual assault and death by suicide.

Plot Summary

As a child, Bea travels with her mother using different names, and even Bea does not know her mother’s real name. They live with various men, usually wealthy men, whom Bea’s mother seduces. Most of these men build rapport with Bea, thinking of her as their own daughter, but Bea’s mother maintains a careful distance from both Bea and these men. Bea loses her virginity to a high schooler when she is in middle school, and her mother berates her for having sex without getting anything in return. Eventually, Bea’s mother moves in with Francis, a wealthy man living in New York City, but Bea is old enough, now, that men are taking an interest in her. Francis tries to force Bea to have sex with men at his elaborate parties, and Bea runs away. Bea’s mother tracks her down and tries to force her to carry on con schemes, so Bea attempts to murder her mother and runs away again.

Years later, Bea is a successful executive at an advertising company, and she meets Collin Case, son of the super-wealthy Case family when he signs a contract with Bea’s company. They begin a relationship, in which Bea pretends that she grew up in North Carolina with parents who are now dead. Bea’s appearance and behavior are carefully tailored to draw Collin in, and she is confident that Collin will marry her, ensuring near-infinite wealth and safety for Bea so long as the marriage persists. However, Collin’s best friend, Gale Wallace-Leicester, threatens to derail Bea’s plan with her own obsessive love of Collin.

Gale and Collin have been best friends since they were children, and Gale hints at knowing something about Bea’s past that would destroy her relationship. Bea is confident that Gale could not know the truth about Bea’s past, and she antagonizes Gale, sparring with her across the table. When Bea meets Collin’s family, they are distant, hinting at Collin’s prior girlfriends, who were also outside the wealthy circle in which the Case family operates. Collin’s mother, Haven, offers Bea millions of dollars to break up with Collin, but Bea refuses, confident that she can win over Collin’s family in time.

Bea becomes friends with Collin’s assistant, Syl, noting that she has never had a close friend before. However, Syl’s poor fiancé and lack of ambition concern Bea, who wants to improve Syl’s quality of life. When Bea breaks into Gale’s apartment to investigate Gale’s claim of knowing about Bea’s past, she inadvertently meets Dave Bradford, a friend of Collin’s with a reputation for sleeping with his friends’ wives. Dave does not recognize Bea, who steals Gale’s file on Collin, finding out that little in the file indicates any information about Bea. With renewed confidence, Bea continues to antagonize Gale, culminating in Collin’s announcement that he is asking Bea to marry him.

After the wedding announcement, Bea continues to antagonize Gale, who invites Dave Bradford to Collin and Bea’s wedding, hoping to fluster Bea. Collin’s family remains aloof around Bea, but Bea softens their view by asking Collin’s sisters, Chloe and Calliope, to be her bridesmaids, including Gale as her maid of honor. For Bea’s bachelorette party, Gale brings the bridesmaids and Bea to Francis’s house in New York City, where the kinds of sexually explicit parties Bea was forced to attend still occur. Bea faints, and Gale tries to convince Collin that Bea has been to such parties before. Collin trusts Bea, and the wedding occurs as planned.

After their honeymoon, Collin experiences depression, and Bea seeks help from Haven, who refuses to get involved. Bea and Syl grow apart after Syl tells Bea that they are sisters. Syl’s father is in prison for the murder of his wife and child, Syl’s mother and sister, but Syl thinks Bea and Bea’s mother are alive, proving her father’s innocence. Bea rejects Syl’s desire for a DNA test. When Bea discovers Gale has been acting as Collin’s unofficial therapist, she forces Collin to cut Gale out of his life. Dave Bradford tries to seduce Bea, but Bea remains faithful, though Gale tries to use her interaction with Dave as evidence against Bea.

Syl reveals to Bea that Gale told her Bea and Syl might be related, though Bea fears her mother is involved. Bea confronts Gale, strangling her and stealing her file on her mother, discovering that Bea’s mother informed Gale’s approach in trying to ruin Collin and Bea’s relationship. Bea’s mother shows up at Bea’s house, letting Bea know that Gale is tied up and offering to help Bea kill Gale to remove her as a threat. Bea reluctantly agrees, feeling conflicted about wanting her mother in her life. Bea ultimately does not help her mother, who burns down Gale’s apartment building, killing Gale.

With Gale out of the picture, Syl and Bea become friends again, and Syl confirms with DNA testing that Bea is her sister, though she promises not to tell the Case family. Syl plans to pursue Bea’s mother to find out the truth, though Bea warns her that her mother is ruthless. Bea is pregnant with her and Collin’s first child, who Bea fears might take after her and her mother. At the baby shower, Bea receives a gift from her mother, reminding her that her mother will always be watching her.