Narration is third person, which is solidly done.

An isolating snowstorm ramps up the tension. The tenants discover they have something additional in common when they are called together for the reading of Sam Westing's will. 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. It is a variation on the manor house mystery, with a very disparate group of people brought together physically. The delivery boy was sixty-two years old, and there was no such person as Barney Northrup.' 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. This glittery, glassy apartment house stood alone on the Lake Michigan shore five stories high. Sunset Towers faced east and had no towers.

'The sun sets in the west (just about everyone knows that), but Sunset Towers faced east. Whatever it was, Raskin's story stayed with me for years. 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. It might have been the cleverness of the mystery or it's absence of gore. But the one mystery that I could still have told you general details about the plot. Well, besides Encyclopedia Brown and Nancy Drew books. The Westing Game is first full-length mystery I remember reading. now i have to go write 250 academic words about it. as a grown up, i liked it very much, but thought the characters could have used a little fleshing out to make them more defined. i would have loved this book like crazy as a kid.

i would have to fine tune it so it works better than the one they have on or (because, no, i would not like to see the aviator, thank you). because if i had had one of these when i was little, then it would have told me, 'you love peggy parrish and her wordplay-based mysteries and you have seen the movie clue enough times that you can recite the whole thing (still can). and then i will have the perfect book-recommending resource. and i am going to take a little bit of my brain, and a little bit of everyone's brain here on (you'll be asleep, you wont feel a thing) and then i am going to moosh it all together, and put it in the brain of the red panda. This is what i am going to do: i am going to take a red panda, and i am going to learn genetics and i dunno - neuroscience.

The westing game book by ellen raskin