Reading order#
| # |
Title |
Published |
Author |
Buy on Amazon |
| 1 |
A Death at Tippitt Pond |
2019 |
Susan Van Kirk |
Buy |
A Death at Tippitt Pond (2019) marks Susan Van Kirk’s third series and third distinct amateur-sleuth type: after a retired teacher (Grace Kimball) and an art center director (Jill Madison), Beth Russell is a genealogist and researcher whose professional skill at tracing family histories becomes directly relevant to a personal mystery about her own origins.
The Sweet Iron setting — another fictional small Illinois town — gives the series the same Midwestern texture as Van Kirk’s other work, while the genealogical premise allows the investigation to move across time in a way the more present-focused Endurance books do not. A Death at Tippitt Pond is the only published entry in the Sweet Iron Mystery series.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many books are in the Sweet Iron Mystery series?
There are one books in the Sweet Iron Mystery series, published in 2019.
What is the first book in the Sweet Iron Mystery series?
The first book in the Sweet Iron Mystery series is A Death at Tippitt Pond, published in 2019.
What is the premise of A Death at Tippitt Pond?
Beth Russell is a researcher and genealogist who learns that her parents were adoptive and that she is the sole living heir of the wealthy Tippitt family of Sweet Iron, Illinois. Her inheritance comes with a mystery: the 1971 death of Melanie Tippitt, an unsolved case that the family has kept quiet for decades. Beth must navigate both the discovery of her actual family history and the investigation into what happened nearly fifty years earlier. The genealogist protagonist gives the series an investigative framework based on research and record-tracing rather than the community relationships that define Van Kirk’s Endurance series.