I would give this book 3.5 stars. I love puzzle type books and I love books about people that don't know each other being pulled into situations together.
This book starts with an empty apartment tower and it looks like very specific people are being asked to move in. It is next to millionaire Sam Westings mansion. Sam Westing dies soon after everyone moves in and it turns out the people in the apartment are the heirs and are paired up with clues to solve in order to win the inheritance.
I didn't always understand what was happening with the clues and I'm not sure if I just wasn't getting it or if that was intentional. I really enjoyed getting to know the different characters and I liked seeing them interact with each other. I liked the puzzle aspect of the story and I really enjoyed the ending.
I don't recall any content issues with this book, although I thought it was funny when one of the characters reacted to a "bad" word: "Oh my!" Flora Baumbach clapped a hand to her mouth on hearing 'dastardly'. First murder, now a swear word. "

This book was reviewed on the Literary Club Podcast episode 87
https://www.buzzsprout.com/1984185 ( )

The Westing Game is first full-length mystery I remember reading. Well, besides Encyclopedia Brown and Nancy Drew books. But the one mystery that I could still have told you general details about the plot. It might have been the cleverness of the mystery or it's absence of gore. It could have been identification with the shin-kicking protagonist, nicknamed 'Turtle.' It could have been the clever signals of winds and atmosphere that run throughout the book. Whatever it was, Raskin's story stayed with me for years.

Opening page:

"The sun sets in the west (just about everyone knows that), but Sunset Towers faced east. Strange!
Sunset Towers faced east and had no towers. This glittery, glassy apartment house stood alone on the Lake Michigan shore five stories high. Five empty stories high.
Then one day (it happened to be the Fourth of July), a most uncommon-looking delivery boy rode around town slipping letters under the doors of the chosen tenants-to-be. The letters were signed Barney Northrup.
The delivery boy was sixty-two years old, and there was no such person as Barney Northrup."

It is a variation on the manor house mystery, with a very disparate group of people brought together physically. Initially, they are convinced to rent or buy units in the newly constructed Sunset Towers, a small building that has room for a coffee shop, a restaurant and a small office, perfect for further enticing the future tenants. The tenants discover they have something additional in common when they are called together for the reading of Sam Westing's will. An isolating snowstorm ramps up the tension.

Narration is third person, which is solidly done. Initially, all the characters have aspects that make them seem flawed, or perhaps somewhat unlikable. Interestingly, however, it was probably one of the broadest casts I can remember reading: a black woman who is now a judge, who grew up poor; a Greek family, whose skin is 'darker' than the black woman's (an interesting concept for a young white kid!); a Chinese family, one a recent immigrant; a couple of economically limited white guys; a suburban white family; a single white older woman dressmaker. We pop in and out of most of their heads at some point, which ends up giving the reader more insight than they each have on each other.

There's accusations in a review or two of racism, but on adult read, I'd say that the racism is all internal to the characters, and Raskin does a solid job of showing how things a certain character might say or do regarding someone else's race is about their own knowledge deficits. I found only a couple of moments for me that might not pass the twenty-first century sniff test: One of the characters, Chris, has some sort of unspecified physical disability that impairs movement and speech. One of the questionable moments comes up when his brother, Theo, tells someone else that they don't need to talk to Chris like a baby, "because he's not retarded."

I usually avoid reading books from childhood, as I'm afraid of having precious memories tarnished. I thought The Westing Game held up well. It's told in an omniscient third person, and tends to switch person and location fairly frequently. In the book, the switches are clearly denoted with ****, but it's the sort of thing that probably won't translate well to audio, unless it was done with an ensemble cast.

I think it is definitely a YA, but in the best sense of the word. Many of the techniques it uses are great for people that are younger and haven't figured some of this out yet; ie. a judge that still has some insecurities, or decides that she will not to compete for the prize, but to protect. The shifts in perspective and time work well for developing empathy--I think each character goes through a redemption arc, and even the one I remember disliking the most--Otis--was shown to be something other than appearance suggested. I ended up searching out a hardcover for my own library, and am glad to have it around. ( )

what a great fun book! I love a good mystery and this one was just a good little adventure. Turtle, how can you not love her?! definitely adding this to my MDBC list!!! ( )

1979 Newbery Medal Winner

The last time I read this book was in high school when one of my best friends recommended it to me.

Now, I love it that I can see who my friend has become and why this book impressed her so much. She is not a huge fiction reader, but she loved this book, and I liked it too.

I'm not sure what the original "rich old man plays a complex game to see who will win his estate" story was, but maybe The Westing Game was it. Ready Player One certainly wasn't.

This is the story of the rich Sam Westing, founder of Westing Paper Products, who (supposedly) dies, leaving his estate in limbo until the residents of the building he owns, Sunset Towers, can solve a series of clues.

They are put in pairs, and the pair who solves the mystery will win the Westing estate. However, the story isn't just about the clues and the game--it's also about the diverse cast of characters and how they learn to be better people because of their partners.

Westing pairs a Chinese restaurant owner with a racist business-savvy white lady, a doctor with a wheelchair-bound youth, a woman resigned to her fate of just being "somebody's wife" with a spinster career-woman, among others.

The clues were hard to follow listening to the audio version, but I still enjoyed it, and I get why my friend did too--she's into politics and women's issues, and the book features a complex social puzzle game as well as a brilliant teenage girl (who goes by the name of Turtle).

Great characters, great narrator, still a great story reading it twenty years later. ( )

#1311 in our old book database. Rated: Good.
#230 for Adele. Rated: Good. ( )