The Westing Game

The Westing Game, by Ellen Raskin (Dutton, 1978.)

For writers, The Westing Game is murder. It is simply the best mystery, best juvenile novel, best anything ever written. I cried at the end. How often can you say that about a mystery? I cried because it was touching. I should have cried because I could never write like that. It made me feel like a five year old who still sticks her bottom out when she plies watching a ballerina piroette in toe shoes on a ballerino's head. (If your mom forwarded you the Chinese Swan Lake video, you know what I'm talking about.)

Raskin amazingly juggles 16 characters who are playing the Westing Game, and they all have their own touching and at times hilarious personalities. They first come together to live in an apartment building overlooking the old Westing House. (A salesperson has given them a great deal.) Next, they are summoned for the reading of Samuel Westing's will. There, they learn that the millionaire's life was taken from him. Westing has divided them into pairs in order to solve the mystery--presumably of who killed him.

Living and working together to solve crimes, the apartment tenants become a tightknit community--albeit a competitive one, as whoever solves the mystery will win the Westing inheritance. Interestingly, the pairs seem perfect for each other. Flora Baumbach, who lost her daughter, is paired with Turtle, for instance, whose mother favors her older sister.

All the characters are given clues, and it's hilarious to see how they use them. Turtle, for instance, is convinced she is supposed to invest in the stock market based on the clues.

As the game nears an end, readers are hit with one twist after another. I thought I had the whole thing solved, but was duped!

More than a mystery, this book is a character study--of 16 people! I like that it showed both their flaws (Mr. Hoo is a grump, for instance, and Grace Wexler, a social climber) but also their good points (Mr. Hoo is a brilliant inventor and proud father and Grace Wexler ends up being a shrewd business woman--and an introspective person.) In the end, they bring out the best in each other, which may have been Mr. Westing's intention.

In the 25th anniversary edition introduction, editor Ann Durell described Raskin, who passed away in 1984 at age 56, as a brilliant woman, not only talented in writing, but also art and the stock market. She wrote The Westing Game as she went along, not plotting the clues and twists before hand. Amazing.

The Verdict: Book Heaven