* FridgeLogic: In ''Point of Impact'', [[spoiler: Drayne shoots a bodyguard in the back of the head while Tad is driving, from the back seat. Minutes later, at a checkpoint-turned-standoff, he convinces Tad to fire the gun into the air and then muses that he can get off scot-free by claiming Tad shot the dead man in the seat next to him now that Tad has gunshot residue on his hands. But wouldn't any of the dozens of federal agents remember that Tad was ''driving'' the car, and therefore couldn't be the one who shot him ''from the back seat'' where Drayne had been sitting?]]
* HarsherInHindsight: Jay frequently secretly hacks his way into private databases during an investigation, often pointing out that the evidence he obtained wasn't legal and couldn't be used in court, but was still important for informative reasons. These books were written in the late 90s and early 2000s, but are set in the early 2010s, the era of Snowden and PRISM and widespread accusations of the NSA doing that exact thing.
* NightmareFuel: Jay goes into a coma. He then realizes it's a coma (mostly due to years of experience visualizing non-real surroundings as a VR programmer), turning it into a lucid dream he can't wake up from...
* StrawmanHasAPoint: Tyrone actually makes some good points about the flaws in intellectual property enforcement.
** Drayne makes some good points on drug legalization, too. He'd probably have been relatively well-off [[spoiler: if a rogue NSA agent hadn't murdered him.]]
* TheyChangedItNowItSucks: Fans were not pleased with the main cast (except Jay) retiring in ''Changing of the Guard.''