6 h 49 minAudiobook12 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at costPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What if a family fortune brings not security, but secrets, rivals, and the feeling that someone is watching?
In Jeopardy by Van Tassel Sutphen draws you into an inheritance mystery set in the American South. Family property, old secrets, and rival claims form the heart of its intrigue. The promise of a fortune comes with suspicion, while hidden knowledge and dangerous rivals make inheritance a source of unease.
This is a period mystery, with the older pace and manners that belong to its kind of storytelling. Sutphen places family fortune at the center of a tale about secrets and competing claims. Read for the atmosphere of old houses and suspicion, and watch how suspense makes you question what lies behind a claim.
What you’ll discover
- A fortune under suspicion Explore an inheritance mystery where family property brings competing claims rather than simple comfort.
- Secrets beneath the surface Follow the pull of hidden knowledge and the unease that surrounds what remains concealed.
- Dangerous rival claims Discover how rivals turn the promise of inheritance into a reason for doubt.
- A Southern setting Enter a mystery set in the American South, amid family fortune and old secrets.
- An older mystery rhythm Settle into period manners and a pace that leaves room to linger over suspicion.
Who will love it
Readers who like country house mysteries, locked rooms, secret passages and codes they can try to crack beside the characters, and who enjoy a storyteller with a dry, self-mocking voice and a love story woven through the puzzle.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A funeral letter brings Hugh south
- The Thanefords and a strange old man
- A will that changes everything
- A doctor doubts a natural death
- The inquest and the yellow rose
- Sugar Loaf and the strange lens
- A rival's ultimatum and a false suspect
- Marriage, a safe and a cipher
- Jealousy, a broken promise and a bound man
- What the story is really about
- How the story is told
Who’s who
- Hugh HildebrandA idle young Philadelphia lawyer who tells the story; he inherits a Maryland estate and wants to keep it and win Betty.
- Betty GraemeFrancis Graeme's adopted daughter, quick, warm and brave, who is determined to learn what lies behind her father's death.
- John ThanefordA heavy, dark-browed neighbour and cousin, in debt, who believes the estate should be his and resents Hugh.
- Chalmers WarrinerA chemist and amateur entomologist who joins the inquest and uses science and sharp questions to test every theory.
- Doctor MarcyThe blunt family physician who doubts that Francis Graeme died of natural causes and asks for an inquest.
- Eunice TrevorBetty's poor cousin and companion, pale and fierce, tied to John Thaneford and hiding what she knows.
- Fielding ThanefordJohn's father, a hairless, nearly ninety year old man with a gifted mind for optics and a deep hatred of the Hildebrands.
- EffinghamThe old butler of Hildebrand Hundred, loyal to the family, who keeps the master key behind a clock.
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- Large-print eBook
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- Audiobook
- 6 h 49 min, complete, read by Lucas Linden.
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas in about 12 minutes, to read or to hear.
- Paperback
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Hardcover
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print paperback
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print hardcover
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
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In Jeopardy
by Van Tassel Sutphen · 1922
A Philadelphia lawyer inherits a Maryland estate from a cousin he met once, and its library hides a deadly secret.
Medium level5–10 hours to read25 languages
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In short
In Jeopardy is a mystery novel by Van Tassel Sutphen, set in Maryland just after the First World War. It follows Hugh Hildebrand, a young Philadelphia lawyer with little to do, who travels south in June 1919 for the funeral of a cousin he has met only once.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A funeral letter brings Hugh south
The story opens in Philadelphia on a June morning in 1919. Hugh Hildebrand is nearly thirty, a lawyer with few clients and a steady income from his late mother's estate. A special delivery letter wakes him. It comes from the Calverton law firm of Eldon and Crawford and announces the funeral of Francis Graeme, owner of Hildebrand Hundred in King William County.
Hugh had met Graeme only once, three months earlier. The two men took to each other at once over a lunch that ran into dinner at the University Club. A planned visit to the Hundred never happened, and now Graeme is dead. Hugh expects at most a small legacy, perhaps enough for a mourning ring.
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What is In Jeopardy by Van Tassel Sutphen about?
It is a mystery about Hugh Hildebrand, who inherits a Maryland estate from a cousin he met once. Deaths in the estate's library, a hostile neighbour and a coded diary set up a puzzle that Hugh, his wife and a chemist work to solve.
Where and when is In Jeopardy set?
The story takes place at Hildebrand Hundred, an old estate in King William County, Maryland, in the years just after 1919. It begins in Philadelphia and uses real train routes, country roads and a fictional county seat called Calverton.
What do the numbers 1-4-2-4-8 mean in the story?
They are the last message of a dying man, passed to Betty at his deathbed. What they mean is the riddle at the heart of the book.
The author
Van Tassel Sutphen
1861–1945 · American novelist and golf writer
Van Tassel Sutphen was an American writer and magazine editor whose novel The Doomsman imagined a ruined, half-forgotten New York generations after a great catastrophe — an early landmark of post-apocalyptic fiction.
More by Van Tassel Sutphen
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