The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin

I did not know that this author was originally an illustrator and that she drew the original 'Wrinkle In Time" cover--so she is a multi-talented person. Instead, I read this in search of a challenge on Goodreads, and and picked this amongst other choices because it is Newberry medal winner. One review that I read called it a baby "Knives Out", which I think is an apt description. Samuel Westing, a reclusive man who had been a humble immigrant before becoming a union-busting paper-products magnate. Westing is found dead, presumed murdered, and sixteen letters are quickly delivered from his estate, inviting the inhabitants and workers of his engineered apartment complex called Sunset Towers to a reading of the tycoon’s will. A lawyer divides the group into eight pairs and announces that they are all potential heirs to Westing’s two-hundred-million-dollar fortune. He distributes eight envelopes filled with seemingly nonsensical clues and instructs the guests that the objective of the unexplained game is to win. There is a lot left unsaid, and the trick is to figure out not only how to stay in the game, but what exactly winning entails.