In 1978, author Ellen Raskin published The Westing Game, a mystery-puzzle book aimed at middle grade readers. In this Newbery medal-winning novel, 16 people are moved into an apartment building and paired up to solve the death of a reclusive millionaire. According to the dead millionaire’s will, whichever team solves the puzzle first gets all the millionaire’s money. It is my opinion that this book was the invention of reality television before reality television knew what it wanted to be when it grew up. The Westing Game was very important to me in my formative years, and more than once I wished I was the main character, Turtle Wexler. (Spoiler: I still wish I was Turtle Wexler.)

Now imagine that The Westing Game has died. It has died, and its agency has been buried in a pit of psychedelic-laced dirt along with some broad swords, a few dirty magazines, and a fifty-gallon drum of sarcasm. And after being interred for three dozen years, it’s dug up in the middle of the night by a group of circus geeks with sharpened spoons while they sing “Black Rider” by Tom Waits, and then dropped in a fish aquarium full of Red Bull and black licorice jelly beans. That’s kind of how I imagine Tamsyn Muir got Gideon the Ninth.

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