Mysteries from the Flyover Zone by Susan Van Kirk

I’ve lived in the Midwest all my life. In case you aren’t familiar with the area, some people refer to it as the flyover zone, and occasionally it is grudgingly granted three minutes on the national news if there is a flood that wipes out entire towns or a tornado leaving a trail of destruction in its wake. Of course there is Iowa in an election year, but that’s an anomaly.

Despite my Midwestern roots, I have discovered small towns provide humor as well as dark moments for my storytelling. You simply must know the neighborhood. For example, I told my editor—who has lived mainly in huge cities—I was having a book-signing at a local bank. I think the conversation went something like this:

             “A bank? Why would people go to a bank? I haven’t stepped in a bank in years. Everything’s done online these days.”

“Actually, I sell more books at a local bank than at any bookstore or library.”

“Seriously? How?”

“I’ve known the President/CEO of a local bank—Stan—since he was in high school, and now he has grandchildren. He gave me excellent information about bank vaults and how to set the timer or evade the alarm for my second Endurance mystery. Of course, I didn’t mention to him that I planned to kill the CEO of my fictional bank, a man who was a horrible person. I figured Stan would find out soon enough.”

“So how does this sell books?”

“Stan figured out which day of the month the bank got the most foot traffic—the last Friday when people show up to cash their paychecks. Once we knew that, we also knew when to have the book-signing. It worked like a charm.”

Small Midwest towns provide the humor in my Endurance mysteries. Like me, my protagonist, Grace Kimball, retired from teaching. But she often saw students she once had—now adults—whenever she ventured forth in the small town of Endurance. Like me, she often remembered the crazy things they did when they were teenagers in high school. Here’s an example from Marry in Haste when Grace sees a former student who is a waitress:

            “Janice. I remember her speech on how to make hand-tossed pizza dough. Cynthia Moore—self-crowned queen of the cheerleading squad—was in the front row. Just as Janice was tossing the dough into the air, the fire

alarm went off, the pizza dough went flying, and it landed in Cynthia’s

blond, perfectly coiffed hair. Janice never did have much sense of focus.”

My newest book, A Death at Tippitt Pond, begins a new series of mysteries called the Sweet Iron mysteries, named for their Midwest setting. This series has less humor, more history. In A Death at Tippitt Pond, it takes no time at all before everyone in town realizes the “new” person, Beth Russell, may possibly be the last heir of the Tippitt family. Her unusual green eyes with gold flecks are discussed all over town. A historical researcher and genealogist, she left her Long Island home to meet with the Tippitt family lawyer, and soon she finds herself sucked into the varying accounts of what happened to Melanie Tippitt the day she was murdered at Tippitt Pond. Sweet Iron is a town of 15,000, still small enough to have plenty of wrong rumors, long-buried secrets, and people who’d like Beth to leave town—one way or another.

Small Midwest towns have given me many ideas for my mysteries, and the nature of the towns and their inhabitants lend themselves to wonderful narratives. Rather than a desolate flyover area of the country as some people think, the Midwest contains a wealth of sociology and history that appear in my stories through two series.