"The Westing Game", "And Then There Were None"

Ellen Raskin's cast was so big that I could barely keep track of who's who. It's nice how everything came together in the end, and I guess the 'America the Beautiful' song part at least. Like the Christie book, there's also a judge. The happy ending for everybody was almost too neat, but that's why it's a YA book.

• Smiling without good reason is demeaning.
• Senseless, you say? Death is senseless yet makes way for the living. Life, too, is senseless unless you know who you are, what you want, and which way the wind blows.
• Angela could not be the bomber, not that sweet, pretty thing. Thing? Is that how she regarded that young woman, as a thing? And what had she ever said to her except "I hear you're getting married, Angela" or "How pretty you look, Angela." Had anyone asked her about her ideas, her hopes, her plans? If I had been treated like that I'd have used dynamite, not fireworks; no, I would have just walked out and kept right on going. But Angela was different.
• “What better disguise for a thief or a murderer than a wheelchair, the perfect alibi.”
• Chris enjoyed being taken for the criminal type. Now they really were friends.
• "Hello, Jake, I'm glad you could come," Sunny (as Madame Hoo was now called) said, shaking the hand of the chairman of the State Gambling Commission.
• "Boom!" Jake Wexler replied.
• “Today I have gathered together my nearest and dearest, my sixteen nieces and nephews (Sit down, Grace Windsor Wexler!) to view the body of your Uncle Sam for the last time. Tomorrow its ashes will be scattered to the four winds. I, Samuel W. Westing, hereby swear that I did not die of natural causes. My life was taken from me–by one of you!”

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Agatha Christie

Dan Stevens does nice voices! Amidst the clockwork murders, the manservant was still faithfully putting out breakfast and lunch and cocktails(!) and what have you. Once he's off-stage the surviving women naturally stepped into the kitchen. Blegh.