History Literature / OnTheRun

* WalkingTheEarth: Occurs throughout the first series.

* ContrastingSequelAntagonist: The BigBad of "On the Run", Hairless Joe, was an ObviouslyEvil assassin who was clearly the main bad guy from the very beginning. In "Kidnapped", while the kidnappers seem to be the same, two of them are actually {{Unwitting Pawn}}s to the third, who is working together with [[spoiler:someone who appears to be a harmless friend and ally of the Falconers and only shows his true colors at the climax: Rufus Sehorn]].

* TheReveal: By putting together the clues they find over the course of the books, Aiden and Meg gradually deduce some important details:
** [[spoiler:In ''Now You See Them, Now You Don't'', they learn that Frank Lindenauer, their parents' contact who told them he worked for the CIA, was actually working for HORUS, the front organization for the terrorists who ended up with the profiles that the Falconers wrote for Frank. Thus, Lindenauer was the one who framed them.]]
** [[spoiler:In ''Public Enemies'', they realize that "Hairless Joe", the assassin chasing Meg and Aiden, was Frank Lindenauer all along. He's trying to kill them to cover up any loose ends that could lead back to him.]]
** [[spoiler:Agent Harris discovers in ''Hunting the Hunter'' that "Frank Lindenauer" isn't even Hairless Joe's real name; his true identity is Terence [=McKenzie=], and he really ''was'' a low-level CIA agent for a while before he became TheMole, and, once the CIA discovered this, dropped out of sight before he could be fired and changed his identity.]]

* AdultFear: Imagine this: you're wrongfully accused of the worst crime anyone could commit besides murder (treason), put in jail, and your kids are put in a juvenile detention center where they're bullied, treated horribly, and living an awful life. Then they break out by setting the place on fire, they're listed all over the news, and not only are the police after them, but the whole country hates your kids. That's what Aiden and Meg's parents go through.

** On the one hand, though FBI Agent Harris does sincerely want to help the Falconers get Meg back, they have understandable reasons for not liking and trusting him after all the harm he's caused to their family, and he himself fully acknowledges this. What's more, he does genuinely screw up the ransom handoff in the first book, which, naturally, [[RealityEnsues makes them trust him even less and gets him taken off the case]].

* TheCavalry: The FBI backup, led by Mike Sorenson, shows up JustInTime [[spoiler:to save Agent Harris and the Falconer siblings from being mauled by a bear, and arrests the kidnappers.]]
** TheCavalryArrivesLate: Downplayed since, as mentioned above, [[spoiler:Sorenson and the FBI do save Harris and the Falconers from a bear; however, by the time they arrive, all of the kidnappers have already been killed or incapacitated.]]

** [[spoiler:Briefly to have happened to Aiden and Meg as well, who avoid being crushed by rocks like Sehorn was but are apparently trapped inside the mine. Luckily, they soon find and escape through a mine shaft.]]

** Emmanuel Harris towards both of the siblings as well. He is determined to get Meg back and works with Aiden to find her, protecting the latter as best he can along the way. At the climax of the series, he [[spoiler:confronts confronts Sehorn when the HORUS agent has the kids cornered, and]] puts himself directly between them and a rampaging bear.

* RealityEnsues:

* SaveTheVillain: Aiden reflexively does this for Hairless Joe in ''Public Enemies'' when the latter almost falls down the elevator shaft he tried to throw Aiden and Meg into. Aiden later laments this since it would have made things much less dangerous for him and Meg, [[spoiler:but it turns out to have been very important because Hairless Joe and Frank Lindenauer are really one and the same, and the Falconers need him alive to prove their parents' innocence]].
* ScaryBlackMan: Emmanuel Harris is 6 feet 7 inches tall and intimidating to many people, a fact that is mentioned numerous times and remarked upon by many. He ends up with numerous nicknames, from "the 9-foot tall FBI agent" to "J. Edgar Giraffe".
* SeriesGoal: Clear their parents' names.
* SternChase: The kids just can't stay in one town for too long, as their pursuers soon find them.

** The biggest examples from Meg comes in ''Hunting the Hunter'': [[spoiler:Realizing that Aiden is going to put his life at risk, and even accept being murdered if it means getting the evidence to prove their parents innocent, is enough to get Meg to turn herself in to Harris to protect her brother. And later, when Lindenauer takes her hostage and Aiden offers to exchange himself for her, she refuses to let him do so.]]

* CorruptionOfAMinor: In the second ''On the Run'' book, they encounter a kid whose dad is forcing her to steal things that he then sells.

** [[spoiler:In ''Public Enemies'', they realize that "Hairless Joe", the assassin chasing Meg and Aiden, was Frank Lindenauer all along. He's trying to kill them to cover up any lose ends that could lead back to him.]]

** On the other hand, they (along with Aiden) [[spoiler:are totally fooled by Rufus Sehorn into thinking he's their OnlyFriend and greatest ally, when he's actually a HORUS agent behind Meg's kidnapping who's planning to murder them. This is the ''second'' time they've been tricked by a HORUS agent pretending to be their friend, as Sehorn himself lampshades, after the first time (with Lindenauer) was what caused the events of "On the Run" and "Kidnapped" to happen in the first place. By contrast, Agent Harris himself is pretty much the only person who to never trust Sehorn from the beginning]].

* UnwittingPawn: The abduction plot isn't really about a simple exchange for ransom money, but only one of Meg's three captors [[spoiler:("Tiger")]] knows this, and is working with a secret fourth kidnapper [[spoiler:("Sehorn")]]. Their two accomplices [[spoiler:("Mickey" and "Spidey")]], who are OnlyInItForTheMoney, are just their patsies, and the latter doesn't realize this until it's too late.

* TheReveal: [[spoiler:HORUS Global Group--whose members were believed to all be dead or in jail--is actually still around, and Meg's kidnapping was actually part of their plot to kill the whole Falconer family in such a way that they wouldn't be considered the main suspects. Rufus Sehorn and Marcelle Devereaux ("Tiger") both work for HORUS and were the leaders of the plan.]]

* UnwittingPawn: For one, the kidnapping plot isn't really about the kidnapping. And most of the kidnappers are unaware that they're just patsies.

* FiveSecondForeshadowing: