The Name of the Game Was Murder

by Joan Lowery Nixon

Published: November 1994
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Pages: 192
Mass Market Paperback
ISBN: 9780440219163

Overview of The Name of the Game Was Murder

Novelist Augustus Trevor has written a manuscript that reveals the darkest secrets of his guests. Whoever can solve Trevor's clues can have his story removed from the book. But when Trevor is bludgeoned to death, the survivors (along with the reader) are challenged to find both the manuscript and the murderer.

When she visits her great-uncle, a successful and self-centered author, at his fortress-like home on Catalina Island, fifteen-year-old Samantha becomes involved in his manipulative game that leads to murder.

Synopsis of The Name of the Game Was Murder

Publishers Weekly

A 15-year-old sleuth tries to solve the murder of her great-uncle, who was killed after writing a tell-all novel about his high-profile friends. An Edgar Award winner. Ages 12-up. (Dec.)q

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Fiction Books & Literature

Teen Fiction

Teen Fiction - Mysteries & Thrillers

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Editorials

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

A 15-year-old sleuth tries to solve the murder of her great-uncle, who was killed after writing a tell-all novel about his high-profile friends. An Edgar Award winner. Ages 12-up. (Dec.)q

Janice Del Negro

A would-be writer, teenage Samantha is attending a house party at the island mansion of her uncle, Augustus Trevor. A famous author, Trevor has written a book revealing some deep, dark secret from the past of each of his now famous houseguests. The guest who finds the hidden manuscript--using clues provided by Trevor--will have his or her "secret" removed. Everyone, except Samantha, has something to hide, even Sam's Aunt Thea, Trevor's wife. But Trevor can't control his own game, and someone bludgeons him to death in an effort to find the damning manuscript. Trapped on the island by a storm and without phone contact to the mainland, Samantha and the others grudgingly work together to find the manuscript and uncover the killer. The derivative plot is helped along by the quick pacing and melodramatic setting, and the stock players (the movie star, the senator, the fashion designer) perform their roles as expected. While the ending is startlingly abrupt and somewhat anticlimactic, the mystery will still be popular with genre fans.