The Westing Game

Trying to keep up with all the clues and piece together the information into an answer is a complex and intellectually rigorous exercise.

The story contains both good and bad role models, many of whom turn out to be more than whom they initially are perceived to be. The hardworking immigrant family, the long-suffering industrial worker (or is he?), the social-climbing would-be heiress, the treasured daughter, and many more stereotypes are explored and revealed as incomplete caricatures of real, multidimensional people with complicated pasts. There's the successful African-American judge who struggles to suppress fears that she's a token success story or has been helped along the way by her Westing connection (J.J. Ford); the entrepreneurial inventor and Chinese restaurant owner (James Hoo) who's putting too much pressure in the wrong direction on his son (Doug), who's more interested in sports than school; the ever-busy and absent husband (Jake) with low self-esteem because he isn't a satisfactory breadwinner for his wife (Grace), a hypochondriac who fakes a limp for attention; a teenager with a crippling neurological disease; and many more memorable characters, all with different lessons to teach one another as they're thrown into a suddenly thrilling and nefarious situation.