Book Club!

The Westing Game - Book Club!

This may have been our very first mystery book. Anne hosted at the park, and we set up chess for the kids to play. Clairana and Nephi have just started learning to play so this was such a fun treat. Monica was so patient in helping them understand. Now they want to play all the time. 

Sunset Towers is a new apartment building on Lake Michigan, north of Milwaukee and just down the shore from the mansion owned by reclusive self-made millionaire Samuel W. Westing. (Despite its name, Sunset Towers faces east – into the sunrise.) Sam Westing was a wealthy businessman who made his fortune in paper products. He was very patriotic and never smoked, drank, or gambled.

As the story opens, Barney Northrup is selling apartments to a carefully selected group of tenants. He claims that chess is not allowed in the building. After Sam Westing dies, at the beginning of the book, it emerges that most of the tenants are named as heirs in Westing’s will. The will is structured like a puzzle, with the 16 heirs challenged to find the solution. Each of the eight pairs, assigned seemingly at random, is given $10,000 cash and a different set of baffling clues. The pair that solves the mystery will inherit Westing’s entire $200 million fortune and control of his company.

Even the mamas joined in on the fun.

I brought popsicles which I thought would be fun until the morning was cold and raining. Oh well the toddlers were entertained.