On page 15, I laughed when “Sydelle Pulaski struggled out of the taxi, large end first.” On page 25, I found myself nodding in recognition at the sentence which reads, “Proud of her liberalism, Grace Windsor Wexler stood and leaned over the table to shake the black woman’s hand.” There is so much important commentary on Grace Wexler in just that one line of description. The Westing Game also manages to be quite witty in some places, and I was surprised by several wonderful moments that made me laugh out loud. I think kids, especially, enjoy the sense of superiority that comes from being smarter than the characters in a book, and from an adult perspective, I just thought it was a neat way to tell a story. Though the story darts in and out of different limited perspectives depending on what is happening at a given moment, the reader is always smarter than any one of the individual characters (except maybe Westing himself).

While the characters have a very limited view of what is happening in the Westing game, the reader is privy to all the clues and is able to draw conclusions the characters could never reach on their own. In addition to the characterization, I also enjoyed the fact that the narration is basically omniscient.

(I did find it helpful to keep a chart at first, but as I spent more time with the characters, I found that I knew them well enough to stop taking notes on every little move they made.) Though there are many, many characters, it is relatively easy to keep track of them because Raskin does give each one such a specific personality and backstory. She gives the reader certain signficant details at specific moments in the story so as to further the plot without giving anything away prematurely. It is clear that Raskin knows her characters very well, and that she is purposely careful with how and when information about them is revealed. Reading it as an adult, though, I am thoroughly impressed by the complexity of the plot itself, as well as the carefully developed characters and the twists and turns that lead to the game’s ultimate solution.

I have always known about The Westing Game, but the only time I tried to read it, I was slightly too young and became quickly overwhelmed by the pressure of trying to solve all the riddles and uncover all the clues. To gain their inheritance, they must work in pairs to piece together a series of clues that will lead them to Westing’s killer. Among them are the owner of a Chinese restaurant, a female judge, a wheelchair bound teenage boy, a podiatrist, a cleaning woman, an aged delivery boy, a doorman, a secretary, and a young girl who kicks anyone who tugs on her braid. Sixteen residents of Sunset Towers have been summoned as the heirs of millionaire Samuel Westing.

Book review of the westing game