Throwback Review: The Westing Game

The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin (1978)

Ellen Raskin opens the book with one of my favorite beginning paragraphs ever:

"The sun sets in the west (just about everyone knows that), but Sunset Towers faced east. Strange!"

All the sentences that follow are also very well written and fuse into an enjoyable adventure. The mysterious Mr. Westing, of Westing Paper Company fortune, passes on and names all but two of the Sunset Towers residents as the heirs and heiresses of his estate. That is to say, they are slated to win thousands, should they figure out who among the proposed inheritors murdered Mr. Westing.

In order to sniff out the murderer, Mr. Westing left behind a series of odd words to act as clues. The sixteen residents are paired off and each couple has a different set of words, which take them down many interesting paths, including right down Wall Street. As tensions rise between the heirs and heiresses, things start to go missing, several small-scale bombings litter the complex and a few end up in the nearby hospital. Yet, despite the suspenseful plot, it maintains an air of playfulness and provides several points to laugh boisterously.