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   sfwriter Teacher
   Community / Jr. College

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   The book begins on the Fourth of July, when Otis Amber starts delivering the letters from Barney Northrup. 

   Then one day (it happened to be the Fourth of July), a most uncommon-looking delivery boy rode around town slipping letters under the doors of the chosen tenants-to-be  (Raskin 1).

   As the tenants move in, Mr. Westing's body is found, and the Westing Game begins, the story moves through autumn into winter.  When the heirs finally find out that Sandy, who was Sam Westing in disguise, is dead, it is late winter, still.  So several months pass during the Westing Game itself.

   But the book doesn't end there -- it describes the future of all the heirs.  The ending of the mystery is on the Fourth of July, approximately 20 years later (Julian Eastman, who was the last alias of Sam Westing) was eighty-five.  So the span of the book is actually many years.

   Source: Raskin, Ellen, The Westing Game.  New York: Avon Books, 1978.

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   Posted by sfwriter on Saturday August 22, 2009 at 8:26 PM