The Westing Game - Ellen Raskin

 

Intro

Now, close your eyes and imagine this: You’v-

Actually don’t close your eyes, I take that back (for obvious reasons).

 

Now, imagine you and an exclusive group of 15 other people have been invited to live in a penthouse in the luxurious Sunset Towers. Imagine the magnificent views, the cocktail parties, your new high-flying life… Until you find out one of your new neighbors is a murderer.

Now the question becomes: Would you 1) Pack your bags and leave or 2) Continue to live in the company of the bloodthirsty killer, and play a sick (yes, in both ways “sick”) murder mystery, and for $200 MILLION dollars compete with 15 others—minus the killer of course—to find out who took the life of the infamous Samuel Westing.

This question was presented in front of mothers, fathers, children… a dressmaker, a secretary, an inventor, a doctor, a judge. And, oh yes, one was a bookie, one was a burglar, one was a bomber, and one was a mistake (pg 5). You don’t know who’s who yet, but this list is supposed to hook you with the promise that every single one of them matters.

Review

This book is actually very enjoyable because it feels like you’re in the book playing the game with the characters, solving the case with them. For example, when you read about the hearing of Samuel Westing's will where he introduces the rules of the game after having his life taken from him, you feel like one of the heirs sitting in the old Westing Manor library, while an inexperienced judge is stuttering out the rules of a ridiculous game.

Another thing I think the book did an incredible job of was its use of different forms of media to show where we’re at in the story and to manipulate the passing of time. The sunset towers bulletin was a great example of this where Ellen Raskin was able to seamlessly transition into using what the characters were posting on the bulletin to show what’s happening in the story right now without any dialogue or scenes, for example when the Theodorakis family coffee shop was bombed in chapter 12 this appeared on the bulletin in chapter 13: 

“Due to the unfortunate damage to the coffee shop Shin Hoo’s Restaurant is prepared to satisfy all dinner accommodations.” 

Raskin could jar you back to reality with a bulletin post that your neighbor’s restaurant’s been bombed.

The last thing I want to mention is how they ended the story, which was seemingly done perfectly in this book. Ellen Raskin seemed to know that after hearing about these characters and seeing their many different perspectives that the reader would get invested in their stories. So instead of ending the story immediately after the mystery is solved and the true heir is revealed, she instead did a good job of narrating the way the rest of the heirs' lives went after the Westing Game. I thought that was just an amazing way to end a story like that.

All in all, 100% recommend The Westing Game to anyone that likes solving mysteries.

- Noah Surheyao