The Killer's Cousin

David Yaffe is a high school senior... again. Recently acquitted of the accidental death of his girlfriend, David moves in with his aunt and uncle in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to avoid the sideways glances of his former friends and to finish high school. He believes that this move will help him to forget what happened to his girlfriend, the trial and the heartache, but he is wrong. In the attic apartment above his aunt and uncle's house, David hears a mysterious humming and sees shadowy figures. His aunt rarely speaks to him, his uncle is slightly aloof, and his cousin, Lily, is a troublemaker. Her parents never see it, though, but that's probably because they're still upset over the tragic suicide of their other daughter, Kathy, which happened some years before. Lily is in the spotlight, being the go-between of her parents, until David moves in. Now she plays evil tricks on him, trying desperately to get him to reveal the way he feels now that he's a killer, and to get him to leave the attic that once belonged to her sister. Through several plot twists, secrets, lies and the like, David discovers that his cousin Lily killed her older sister. After he finds this out, Lily tries to kill herself by setting the house on fire, but David rescues her and promises, "We'll help each other ... When it hurts, when we're afraid, if we're ever tempted (to kill again)--we tell each other. I'll help you. You'll help me. We won't use the power we have. And we'll find ways to do good. To .. to atone" (226).

David tells this mysterious story, the story of Lily, the killer's cousin, but reveals his story at the same time. By telling Lily's story, which tells his own, the reader sees the theme of living with consequences develop. David must live with what he has done, and so must Lily. Together, the two realize this and learn to live despite the terrible things they've done in the past.

This book is very intriguing and would be great for reluctant teen boy readers and those who like crime shows like Law and Order, NCIS and CSI. The only thing that I did not like about the book was the fact that Lily's parents saw no problem with the things she was doing, or ignored them, and put the blame on David. I believe to a certain degree that everyone thinks their child is precious, but you have to realize there's a problem eventually, and before the child burns the house down.John Peters (Booklist, September 1, 1998 (Vol. 95, No. 1)) says of The Killer's Cousin, "Positioning her characters in an intricate, shadowy web of secrets, deception, bad choices, family feuds, and ghostly warnings, Werlin winds the tension to an excruciating point, then releases it in a fiery climax... Melissa Thacker (VOYA, October 1998 (Vol. 21, No. 4)) says, "David and Lily are sympathetic characters, who compel readers to discover the whole truth behind their stories. Once they get started, readers will be hard pressed to put this book down."

To share this book with teens, it could be a good idea to read it along with another teen murder mystery by Nancy Werlin, The Black Mirror. A fun activity to include after this reading would be to have a murder mystery dinner, where the teens have to use the sleuthing skills they've obtained from reading these books to figure out who-done-it.

What follows is my favorite selection from The Killer's Cousin, from page 175, when David finally realizes the truth:

I was David Bernard Yaffe. I had not meant to kill Emily. I had not meant even to hurt her. But I had, and now I lived forever with the abyss that separated me from people who didn't know what it was like, to have killed. To be a killer.

Acquittal had nothing to do with it. I was a killer. And I knew in my gut when I met another of my kind. Until then, I had refused to see it. I hadn't wanted to know the truth. But the knowledge had been there, somewhere in me, for a long, long time. Guilt knows guilt.

Like knows like.

Lily had killed Kathy.

Werlin, Nancy. 1998. The Killer's Cousin. New York: Delacourt Press. ISBN 9780385325608