The Name of the Game was Murder -- Joan Lowery Nixon Read for the 4th Annual 48-Hour Book Challenge.
The Name of the Game Was Murder is Joan Lowery Nixon's take* on the classic Island Mystery set-up**, but it isn't just that -- it's also a solve-the-puzzle-to-find-the-treasure story. The difference is that the characters aren't seeking a nice treasure, like in The Last Treasure. Oh, no. They're looking for a hidden manuscript that contains career-ending, life-ruining secrets.
Fifteen-year-old aspiring writer Samantha Burns invites herself to her great-aunt's house for a vacation because she wants some face-time with her great-aunt's husband: novelist Augustus Trevor.
Turns out, he's a total jerk. He's got two sides -- nasty and nastier. It also turns out that her visit coincides with a treasure hunt/house party he has planned. At first, despite her disappointment about her great-uncle's disposition, Sam is excited at the thought of rubbing elbows with celebrities: an actress, a romance novelist, a football star, a Senator and a clothing designer***. But she soon realizes that this is no regular house party -- none of the guests are really here by choice -- their "invitations" all included the line:
"If you don't take part, you'll soon regret it."
At dinner on the first night, Mr. Trevor outlines the game he's come up with: Each guest will receive a series of clues, and the person who solves the puzzle won't be included in his tell-all book. Everyone else will be ruined.
It will come as no surprise to anyone who's read a single murder mystery: Augustus Trevor doesn't make it through the night alive. And so it becomes a race to find the manuscript before the police investigation begins: For Sam, because she believes the manuscript will be the key to finding the murderer, and for everyone else -- including her aunt -- because if it is destroyed, all of their darkest secrets will be safe.
I can't believe I just spent so much time explaining the very simple premise of this book. I found, actually, that as I read, I kept trying to make the story more complicated than it was: MAYBE HE'S NOT REALLY DEAD! MAYBE THE HOUSEKEEPER IS ACTUALLY HIM OH NO WAIT THERE WAS THAT SCENE WHERE SHE WAS IN THE ROOM WITH HIM DAMN WELL MAYBE HE'S HIDING IN THE SERVANT'S HOUSE AND THE SERVANTS ARE ALL IN ON IT AND HE'S REALLY A JOLLY NICE FELLOW AND THERE'S A GOOD REASON FOR ALL OF THIS! (That would be The Westing Game influence.) Let me help you out here: He's really dead. He's really a nasty piece of work, and he's really dead. There. Now you can read it and try to figure out the clues without distraction.
I'll give you a hint, though -- you don't need the clues. If, as you read, you keep an eye out for the MOST OBVIOUS HIDING PLACE THERE IS, you'll do just fine. And you'll probably find the manuscript a good 120 pages before Sam, despite her Puzzle Prowess.
Joan Lowery Nixon does lurrrve the similes -- a few for your enjoyment:
Finally, his pupils, swimming like fat fish in goldfish bowls, focused on me. (4)
...her golden eyes [she's a sparklepire?] trained on Thea like piercing spotlights. (20)
...her words dragged, plopping themselves down like reluctant feet. (23)
I actually stopped keeping track of them because, despite the silliness of many aspects of the story, I got pulled in -- and despite my being almost 99.98% sure about the identity of the murderer, there were moments that had me genuinely feeling the suspense. So, fun. I'm glad I've decided to revisit Nixon and Duncan.
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*Or at least one of her takes -- she's got so many books that I wouldn't be at all surprised to learn that there are more.
**You know the one: A murder occurs at a gathering in an isolated area while there is coincidentally a storm so that all of the characters are stuck together with a body and a killer for at least a weekend. Think And Then There Were None.
***Who wears at one point, I kid you not, a shirt unbuttoned halfway down his chest and what must be the world's largest ascot.