Screenwriter Rachel Koller Croft centers her readers in the mind of damaged, insecure and unhappy conwoman Bea in “Stone Cold Fox.”
The successful marketer grew up with a mother who never shared authentic emotions or names with her affection-seeking daughter. However, Mother taught Bea how to use her beauty and sexuality to exploit powerful men and gain financial security through marriage.
Having learned some tough lessons from past experiences, Bea sets her sights on Collin Case, only son of the east coast elite family with generations of wealth. She invents a past as an only child of Bob and Alice who attended Duke before moving to New York City. Collin’s friends quickly approve of Bea, except for best friend Gale Wallace-Leicester. Gale sees through Bea’s facade and actively works to undermine her relationship with Collin.
Despite Gale’s best efforts, Collin chooses a life with Bea and the two get engaged then married. Bea does encounter constant issues with everyone from the Case clan, temptation from womanizer Dave Bradford, and even Collin’s assistant Sylvia Austin.
Bea also has a creeping feeling that her conniving Mother has found her and wants revenge for leaving and ending their grifter team. With a first person point of view, the reader learns about Bea’s low-level anxiety and how she masks it behind internalized misogyny and classism.
The last 80 pages of the novel shift focus from Bea’s efforts to assimilate into the Case family and guarantee financial security to verbal and physical fights to maintain the false narrative she’s crafted.
Character Analysis
Characters
Bea
Collin Case
Gale Wallace-Leicester
Mother (woman of many aliases)
Sylvia “Syl” Austin
Bea is a fully fleshed out main character whose desire to ingratiate herself into a wealthy family and enjoy the finer things in life drive her actions. She’s fearless about confronting women but relies on stereotypical feminine wiles to charm and seduce men to get her way. As her upbringing is slowly revealed to the reader, it becomes clear why she finds overt social climbing and manipulation acceptable and is opposed to becoming genuine friends with any other woman.
Gale is the near polar opposite of Bea. Having grown up among the 1 percent, she has long lasting friends with both men and women of her class and is free to pursue her hobbies and dress in comfortable, unsexy clothing without fear of missed opportunities for advancement. Given her closeness to Collin, Gale is immediately suspicious of Bea and makes it her job to root out details of the outsider’s past to share with her friend for his own good.
Syl breaks through Bea’s superficial exterior and connects with the prickly woman through many lunches. Much later in the novel, Syl’s motive for showing kindness to Bea is revealed and almost ruins their friendship. The novel ends with confirmation that Syl will be much more than a passing acquaintance in Bea’s life going forward.
Mother serves as the great unknown villain of Bea’s origin story. The established con woman acts as a nurturer, tormentor, mentor and monster to be avoided as adult Bea endures reminders of her hectic, unstable and abusive childhood. Despite her best efforts to repress and deny her past, Mother looms as a large shadow that dampens her daughter’s successes.
Because Bea refuses to have genuine friendships or any relationships, especially with women, she remains the only truly fleshed out character. Everyone else is akin to a chess piece she can move around the proverbial board, even though Gale gives Bea a run for her (or Collin’s money).
Final Thoughts
Koller Croft quickly establishes “Stone Cold Fox”‘s Bea as a likable and troubled anti-hero with internal monologues sure to make readers smirk in recognition. The narrative’s set up and the slew of tense situations in which Bea finds herself lend the familiar story of an ambitious female social climber some suspense, but the final sections of this debut novel feel repetitive, clunky with a resolution that is all but tied up in a golden bow.
Rating
My rating is 3.25 stars out of five.
Book Details
Title: Stone Cold Fox
Author: Rachel Koller Croft
Year of Publication: 2023
Number of Pages: 353
Check out the “How to Kill Your Family” review for more social climbing scheming.
