By: Ellen Raskin
Rate: very good
In Sunset Towers there lived many people. Right next to Sunset Towers was the creepy Westing house. It was heard in Sunset Towers that Sam Westing had died, and sixteen people in Sunset Towers were his relatives, and they were to attend his funeral. These people were: Madame Hoo, Jake Wexler, Turtle Wexler( her real name is Tabitha-Ruth Wexler), Flora Baumbach, Chris Theodorakis, Denton Deere, Sandy McSouthers, J.J. Ford, Grace Windsor Wexler, James Shin Hoo, Erica Crow, Otis Amber, Theo Theodorakis, Doug Hoo, Sydelle Pulaski, and Angela Wexler. Samuel W. Westing loved to play games, and still did after he died. The game in his will was to find who murdered him, and that person was one of the heirs! The partners were split into teams of two, in the order I had written. Each pair was given clues that were different from each other.
After a long time of searching for the murderer, the heirs still couldn’t find him/her. Also, “bombs” had been going on in Sunset Towers. They wondered who set them. The true answer was Angela, the perfect Angela (she was actually a victim of a bomb, and Sydelle was another. Angela had always been her mother’s favorite and perfect child, unlike Turtle), but to protect her sister, Turtle set the last bomb and was caught and pretended she had set all of them.
Finally, the day arrived when partners were to give their answers. One group (Sydelle’s and Angela’s) gave the answer Otis Amber. Others gave others, but most replied that they did not have an answer. Turns out all the answers were wrong. But how did Westing know the answers were wrong? He was dead-or was he? Turtle, the brilliant Turtle, found out an answer along with the judge J.J. Ford. Samuel W. Westing was not dead. Actually, his real name was Windy Windkloppel, but he changed it to Sam Westing. Then-this might be a surprise-he disguised himself as the Sunset Towers doorman, Sandy McSouthers, who was one of the heirs and [pretended] to die/died.This is how he knew the answers were wrong. At the same time, Westing had pretended to be Barney Northrup, the old owner of Sunset Towers. Also, they found out that Crow was actually Mrs. Westing, Sam Westing’s ex-wife.
In all this confusion, Turtle noticed something. In the will it read: The heir who wins the windfall will be the one who finds the fourth. She realized that Westing, McSouthers, Northrup, were West, South, and North. So, Turtle went to find East. She arrived at Julian R. Eastman. And she was right. Mr. Eastman was Sandy, her good friend.
In the end, every heir had a happy ending. I love this story because it is very intense and interesting.
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