The Westing Game

Raskin, E. (2008). The Westing game. Speak. (Original work published 1978). 192 pages. ISBN 9780140386646

Primary genre: mystery

Other elements: family, friendship, humor, suspense

Intended reader age: 10 and up

Synopsis:

The 16 inhabitants of the Sunset Towers are all invited to the reading of the will for the recently deceased Samuel W. Westing, self-made million. It is here that they are all informed of their chance to be the sole heir and inheritor of his $200 million fortune. If, they can figure out the clues and name the person that took his life. The group is paired off and each given a separate set of clues and informed, “It is not what you have, but what you don’t have.” As the teams work to figure out their clues it becomes obvious to some that this mystery is not as straightforward as they first thought.

Review:

While reading this I had the brief thought of writing down the clues as they were revealed. But I opted to just immerse myself in the story and enjoy the surprises as they came along. And this was a fairly surprising novel. It was written in such a way that you did not spend too much time in anyone character’s head. So, you always had the doubts of everyone popping up when the next ‘suspect’ was identified.

But after reading through and coming across the a couple of the clues, and recalling the ending of the will, I was able to figure out part of the mystery, but again I did not go through and record the clues to fill in that blank.

The interactions and dynamic of the characters was especially interesting to me. I liked that Mr. Westing, in his plan, took the time to pair people together in ways that would help them to become better people. While their traits may not have always helped their relationship partners, they were able to help their partner for the game. They were also able to learn from each other to make their relationships outside of the game better.

It was not until writing the bibliographic information that I realized the original publication date of this book. I knew it older, I remember it being around when I was younger, but I did not realize how much older it was. But, the great thing about this story is the non-time specific feel of the story. Despite the lack of technology and social media references, the book does not feel outdated. It is an intelligent novel and presents readers with enough intrigue and enough challenges that they will not even be aware.

Even though this book is much more subdued, reading this did bring to mind for The Secret Series by Pseudonymous Bosh and The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart which are both series that I absolutely adore.