The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin

First published: 1978

Type of work: Mystery

Themes: Crime and friendship

Time of work: The late twentieth century

Recommended Ages: 10-13

Locale: Westingtown, on the shores of Lake Michigan

Principal Characters:

• Samuel W. Westing, a reclusive millionaire who directs the investigation of his own death
• Turtle Wexler, a thirteen-year-old who plays the stock market and terrorizes fellow heirs by kicking shins when she is angry
• Flora Baumbach, a lonely old dressmaker selected by Westing as Turtle’s partner in the Westing game
• Angela Wexler, Turtle’s pampered elder sister who is bored with her sheltered life
• Sydelle Pulaski, a hypochondriac middle-aged secretary who becomes Angela’s partner
• Grace Windkloppel Wexler, Turtle and Angela’s mother, who wants to seem more important than she is
• James Shin Hoo, a restaurant owner and one-time inventor who is Grace Wexler’s partner
• Sun Lin Hoo, the second wife of James Hoo, isolated by her limited English and homesick for her native China
• Jake Wexler, Grace’s podiatrist husband (and a bookie), who becomes Mrs. Hoo’s partner
• Doug Hoo, a high school track star pushed to excel by his proud father
• Theo Theodorakis, a high school senior who works in his family’s coffee shop, selected as Doug’s partner
• Chris Theodorakis, Theo’s wheelchair-bound younger brother with halting speech, who hides his intelligence
• Dr. Denton Deere, a medical intern in plastic surgery engaged to Angela Wexler, made Chris’s partner
• Judge J. J. Ford, daughter of a Westing servant and the first black woman elected judge in the state
• Sandy McSouthers, a likable old doorman at Westing’s Sunset Towers apartment house and partner to Judge Ford
• Berthe Erica Crow, an aging cleaning woman at Sunset Towers whose volunteer work at the Good Salvation Soup Kitchen helps soothe the guilt in her religious soul
• Otis Amber, a sixty-two-year-old deliveryman with a mental handicap who is Crow’s partner

The Story

The Westing game begins when news of Samuel W. Westing’s death brings together sixteen carefully selected heirs for the reading of Westing’s last will and testament. A man with a dramatic flair for elaborate games, he presents his unlikely assortment of heirs with a challenge from beyond the grave. Westing’s will pairs the heirs, providing each team with ten thousand dollars and a few mysterious clues to the identity of his murderer. The bulk of his multi-million-dollar estate will go to the one who names the heir responsible for taking Westing’s life.

With no two sets of clues alike, the heirs struggle to make sense of their own closely guarded clues while they conspire to discover others. A blizzard imprisons them in Westing’s Sunset Towers apartment house, increasing the tension as teams compete to win the fortune. The Westing game players employ a variety of strategies. Turtle talks Flora Baumbach into investing their ten thousand dollars in the stock market, convinced that Westing will reward a good return on his investment. Sydelle Pulaski puts her secretarial training to use by taking shorthand notes on the unfolding events. Judge Ford draws on her legal talents to gather evidence about fellow heirs’ past connections to Westing.

Ford and her partner, Sandy McSouthers, discover some startling links between Westing and his heirs. James Hoo once accused Westing of stealing an invention. Flora Baumbach made a wedding dress years before for Westing’s daughter, another reluctant bride with a striking resemblance to Angela. Chris and Theo’s father was once in love with Westing’s now-dead daughter.

The key to the clues is discovered by another pair of heirs. Sydelle and Angela ponder their collection of clues, suddenly realizing that the clues spell out most of the lyrics to “America the Beautiful.” They recover from their injuries in time to join the other heirs as each team is called upon to unravel Westing’s puzzle.

In Westing’s mansion, events unfold at an alarming rate. Messages from the dead Westing reject the answers offered by each team and challenge any individual to name the murderer. Judge Ford suddenly recognizes her old mentor Westing, alive and well, disguised as Sandy McSouthers. Sydelle and Angela reveal the meaning hidden in the clues, the missing parts of which spell out the name of Berthe Erica Crow. Suddenly Sandy drops to the floor with an unseeing stare. Amidst a stunned silence, Crow names herself the murderer to obtain Westing’s prize for her beloved soup kitchen and for her favorite Angela. Following Crow’s arrest, the heirs learn that she was once Westing’s wife, that Westing has been masquerading as the doorman, and that Crow thus cannot be held for a murder that never took place.

Meanwhile Turtle slips quietly away to collect the big prize, for only she has deduced Westing’s latest disguise. Samuel Westing, born Windy Windkloppel, has become Sandy McSouthers, and sometimes his mysterious agent Barney Northrup. The clues West, South, and North lead Turtle to East—Julian R. Eastman, present chairman of the board of Westing Paper Products. Westing/Eastman becomes Turtle’s mentor and friend as he grooms her to inherit his industrial empire.

Context

Far from the typical whodunit, The Westing Game draws the reader into the search for a solution. Described by its author as a “puzzle-mystery,” the book piles detail upon detail with such abundance that the reader is constantly evaluating and reevaluating which is significant and which is not. Clues are revealed in a carefully orchestrated manner that lets the reader piece them together like one of Westing’s heirs.

Raskin’s story grew, literally, from a puzzle. She began writing it in 1976 by typing out the words to “America the Beautiful” and cutting them apart. In honor of the bicentennial celebration, her characters represent the ethnic melting pot that is the United States: Black, Chinese, German, Greek, Jewish, Polish. A rags-to-riches tribute to U.S. capitalism, the story begins and ends on the Fourth of July.

Raskin began her career as an illustrator and author of picture books for younger children. She is well known for authoring and illustrating Nothing Ever Happens on My Block (1966), Spectacles (1968), Who, Said Sue, Said Whoo? (1973), and nearly a dozen other picture books. While her picture books reflect the same imagination that characterizes The Westing Game, it is Raskin’s longer books, all of which are mysteries, that overflow with inventiveness. Her first novel, The Mysterious Disappearance of Leon (I Mean Noel) (1971), is full of games and puzzles like The Westing Game. Figg & Phantoms (1974) and The Tattooed Potato and Other Clues (1975) are also filled with outrageous characters, improbable events, and rich wordplay.

It is The Westing Game, however, that emerges from Raskin’s body of work as the most successful. As proof of the critical acclaim that has greeted this demandingly complex novel for children, the American Library Association in 1979 presented Ellen Raskin the prestigious Newbery Medal for excellence in books for children.