My formal training is as a civil engineer, and I’ve always loved math and science. I loved the idea of readers being an active participant in the story, if they’re perceptive enough. I really admired how Raskin uses the third person point-of-view and the omniscient narrator to hide information from readers and from the characters-yet all the clues are there. I actually rediscovered the book when I was writing The Great Greene Heist. I first read The Westing Game when I was a child, and I loved the mystery element. What is it about Ellen Raskin’s mystery that resonates with you, as a writer and a reader? Puzzles, involving both words and numbers, play a crucial role in The Parker Inheritance, and the novel pays direct homage to The Westing Game. We spoke with Johnson about the power of perception, the personal roots of his novel, and addressing issues of prejudice for young readers. Along the way, the children unearth a decades-old hate crime and confront the town’s lingering racial tensions. When neighbors Candice and Brandon discover a cryptic letter containing clues to a secret fortune, they set out to solve the riddle. Johnson’s forthcoming novel, The Parker Inheritance, blends history and mystery in a puzzle adventure s et in the fictional town of Lambert, S.C.- inspired in part by the author’s South Carolina hometown of Florence. The challenge will lead them deep into Lambert's history, full of ugly deeds, forgotten heroes, and one great love and deeper into their own families, with their own unspoken secrets.Varian Johnson is the author of the Jackson Greene middle grade series, which includes his 2014 caper, The Great Greene Heist, and the 2016 follow-up, To Catch a Cheat.
So with the help of Brandon, the quiet boy across the street, she begins to decipher the clues. And the fortune that awaits the person who solves the puzzle. It's addressed to her grandmother, who left the town in shame. When Candice finds a letter in an old attic in Lambert, South Carolina, she isn't sure she should read it. Johnson writes about the long shadows of the past with such ambition that any reader with a taste for mystery will appreciate the puzzle Candice and Brandon must solve." - The New York Times Book Review A Coretta Scott King Author Honor and Boston Globe / Horn Book Honor winner!
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