In the first novel of the Kipton series, Kipton is a 14-year-old girl and Gruff is a fully reasoning stuffed teddy bear (an extension of Kipton's subconsciousness) who talks to Kipton. He is a medium for her own inner cognitions. They become an investigative duo trying to find the murderer of Kipton's ingenious Uncle Charlie. The setting is an Earth-colony on Mars, called the Pile, "a huge building covering 200 acres, rising a dozen levels, honey-combed with corridors and residential apartments, and spotted with scientific and commercial complexes." Here scientific research is mixed with economic greed. Detailed descriptions are precise, yet so smooth that the reader gathers them in effortlessly. Central figures are Kipton, her father and step mother and Jack. Their characterization is full-bodied; a major focus of the story is their interaction. The plot-line is rich with twists, motivations, alternate motivations and clues.

Bored with daily life on the Pile, Kipton gladly accepts Nikolai's invitation to spend some vacation with his family at West Mars, his family's estate outpost a quarter of the way around Mars. Nikolai is of Russian origin. She goes with Dr. Burundi, who was to attend a scientific conference to examine a huge diamond "find" that could be an ancient artifact, proof that Mars had been inhabited. Just as the conference begins, the diamond mysteriously vanishes. Braving a horrible floating head in her room at night, Kipton's attention to seemingly unrelated details solves the case.

Kipton and the Tower of Time chronicles another Kipton visit to the West Mars, where a mysterious tower seems to offer the possibility of time travel. The Tower of Time gives the appearance of being an ancient artifact, left behind by an advanced civilization which used a set of symbols no one seems able to comprehend. When things go badly wrong on a trip Kipton takes with a group of scientists, Kipton is drawn into solving yet another mystery.

Kipton and The Android is a very intellectually challenging mystery. An android kills its creator in violation of its commandments, and the philosophic and logic implications are fully exploited by the author to set Kipton on an investigation that stretches her and the reader. A sub-theme of this novel is the language of flowers.

Kipton and The Voodoo Curse. To solve a crime involving naturally occurring poisons and their uses, Kipton strives to develop an understanding of another of Earth's cultures as it has been transported to Mars. This time, her good friend Daphne is in love with an older man, who becomes the target of a voodoo curse.

Scientists on Mars seem to have solved the problem of transmitting matter. Their machine is blamed for the disappearance of a scientist with his papers. Gruff and Kipton run the risk of disappearing similarly. But everyone is together at the end. And Jack finally asks for Kipton's hand.

Kipton is one of the founders of Martian Maidens, a group modeled on the scouts on Earth.. Kipton, now an "elderly" teen, befriends a young girl, Kellianne, with many of her own detecting qualities. They work together when death interrupts the camping trip Kipton has helped to arrange.

Kipton has gone to University, where she finds adults are as prone to mischief and mayhem as everywhere else she has been. At the end of the volume, Kipton gives Gruff to Kellianne, and hands over her unofficial position of girl detective on Mars to Kellianne.