The Barnaby and Hooker Series by Janet Evanovich / The Fox and O'Hare Series by Janet Evanovich & Lee Goldberg

I'm a fan of Janet Evanovich.  She does to thrillers/crime solvers what Terry Pratchett does to fantasy.  She writes laugh-out-loud comedy, but still can get you to root for the characters.  However, her work is a bit formulaic - take a kick-ass girl, a bad boy guy who she's attracted to, and plunk them right in the middle of an unsolved crime that they need to solve without going to the authorities for some reason.  That would sum up the plot of every single one of her books.  So you know what you're getting into when you pick up a book by her.

I started out by reading Evanovich's Stephanie Plum series, but saw she had two other series on the shelf and picked them up also.  In The Fox and O'Hare Series, there are three books: The Heist, The Chase and The Job.  FBI Special Agent Kate O'Hare is teamed up with international thief Nicolas Fox to solve crimes.  Things go wrong and hijinks ensue.

If you're a fan of Evanovich and/or thriller comedy, I'd recommend this series.  It is written like stock romances - nothing seriously bad ever happens to the main characters or their families, and you know the good guys are going to win, usually in a ridiculous and silly way.  It's not quite as over-the-top humor as her Stephanie Plum series, but I'm guessing that's probably the influence of her co-author, Lee Goldberg.  I think it's probably my least favorite of her series, since one thing that I like best about Evanovich is her over-the-top humor.  This series is "Evanovich lite."

Then there's the Barnaby and Hooker series composed of two books: Metro Girl and Motor Mouth.  In the first book, Alexandra "Barney" Barnaby receives a strange call from her brother, Bill, in the middle of the night.  She flies down to Florida where he lives to find out what's happened to him.  She runs into Sam Hooker, a NASCAR driver whose boat has been stolen by her brother.  Together, they find out that her brother is in deep, deep trouble.  In the second book, this time it's Barney and Hooker who are in trouble, and they have to go to all sorts of lengths in order to get out of it again.

As I've said, I'm a fan of Evanovich.  But if you're looking for subtlety or depth to your thrillers, these aren't the books for you.  The good guys always win, the bad guys are punished (usually permanently).  But these series are a nice, light read and perfect to take to the beach.