The Westing Game Review

The Westing Game
By: Reviewer

Dear Reader,

On a Halloween night a kid named Turtle was dared to go into Mr. Westing’s mansion. He had not been seen in a very long time and was thought to be hiding on a distant island. Turtle got inside and when she walked up into the bedroom she saw Mr. Westing, dead. He left a note on the table, it was a will. Only 16 people were allowed to hear the reading of the will. These people were close friends and relatives of Mr. Westing. The will said that he was killed by one of the 16 people in the room. The will also gave hints to who killed him. The person who found the answer to who had killed him first was going to win the estate and all of Mr. Westing’s over 200 million dollars.

The possible heirs of Mr. Westing’s money were put in pairs. These people would work together to try to answer the riddle. Each pair got a clue. The clues were difficult to understand and were mostly just a line of seemingly random words or letters. The pairs also got to share $10,000. The pairs worked for a couple months trying to make any meaning of the clue they were given. The possible heirs were then called back to the mansion to see if anyone had found the answer to the mystery, nobody had. The pairs then got another clue. Most groups now were starting to make sense of their clues and pretty soon all the pairs thought for sure they had the right person.

Again the possible heirs of the Westing estate were called to the mansion. Again nobody had the correct answer. The pairs got one last clue they now got only 5 minutes to use the clue to find the person who killed Mr. Westing. At the end of the five minutes only Turtle thought she knew who the killer was. Mr. Westing had actually not been killed at all. He had been pretending to be the doorman the entire time. The estate was split up between all the heirs.

The main theme of this book was suspense. Throughout the entire book you were unsure of how the story would turn out. The end caught me completely off guard. The whole story took a big twist when you learned that Mr. Westing was actually the doorman of the apartment building the people were living at. He had been talking to the possible heirs the whole time. He had been friends with them and acted like a normal doorman. My favorite part of the book is at the beginning when Turtle was dared to go into the Westing house she said,” Make it two dollars for each minute and you’re on.” She later regretted that bet after she ran out of the Westing House after she thought she saw Mr. Westing dead. Later in the book it was found that Mr. Westing was actually not dead and what Turtle saw was a wax dummy.
I would rate this book a 4 out of 5. I loved the story line but I though the story often got a little slow. Too much time was spent talking about people trying to find meaning of the clues which I guess was the point of the story. The author could have possibly done more to make the story more exciting. I would recommend this book to someone who enjoys a mystery with suspense. This book was, at some times, exciting and thrilling.

From,
Reviewer (please leave a comment to tell me what you thought about my review)