Killer's Cousin

by Nancy Welin

Book Review

Publishers Weekly :

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Many secrets bubble just beneath the surface of this skillful thriller narrated by a high-school senior who has been accused--and acquitted--of murdering his girlfriend. David Yaffe moves from Baltimore to Cambridge to avoid publicity, but instead of finding refuge with Uncle Vic, Aunt Julia and cousin Lily, he is shown to their attic apartment and expected to fend for himself. His relatives appear to be conducting a cold war. Still blaming each other for their daughter Kathy's suicide four years ago, Julia and Vic have stopped speaking to each other. The one who suffers the most from their silence is 11-year-old Lily, who shows signs of being emotionally disturbed. Suspense rises to a feverish pitch as pieces of a complex puzzle fall into place, involving Kathy's death and Julia and Vic's estrangement from each other and from David's parents. Even Kathy's ghost seems to make an appearance, imploring David to "help Lily." Meanwhile, Lily is doing everything she can to turn her parents against him. David's attempts to pull the family together fail miserably until, in the aftermath of a chilling climax, he confronts his own demons as he attempts to help Lily dispel hers. The novel's gothic flavor, compelling minor characters (David's skinhead friend, Frank, and Raina, a college student and artist) and subtle exploration of guilt and complicity add texture to this tense psychological drama. Werlin (Are You Alone on Purpose?) leaves enough unanswered questions to make readers want to keep lights burning a little longer than usual. Ages 14-up.

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School Library Journal :

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Gr 8 Up-David Yaffe, 18, having recently been acquitted of murdering his girlfriend, is sent to live in Cambridge, MA, with his aunt Julia, uncle Vic, and cousin Lily to repeat his senior year of high school. Lily, 11, is resentful of his presence; she feels that her dead sister Kathy's room is rightfully hers, and that he should not be staying in it. Lily taunts and torments David until he begins to doubt his own sanity. His emotional fragility is compellingly revealed as he works through the loss of his girlfriend and the complicity he feels over her death. Readers see Lily through David's eyes; she is alternately depicted as the troubled child of dysfunctional parents, a spoiled brat, and a truly evil character. She plays on his fears and pushes David to the edge until he realizes what he has always known: that she, too, is a killer. This psychological thriller will keep readers involved and should appeal to fans of Lois Duncan and Joan Lowery Nixon.-Michele Snyder, Chappaqua Public Library, NY

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: Booklist :

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*Starred Review*

Gr. 7-12. In this utterly terrifying psychodrama, a teenager already laboring under a crushing load of guilt finds himself cleverly, relentlessly stalked by his 11-year-old cousin. David killed his lover. The fact that it was accidental and that he's been acquitted of her murder, matters to him not at all. To finish high school and perhaps find a way to live with himself, he moves away from home to stay with Massachusetts relatives, where, in an attic apartment that may be haunted, he lives above a family driven seriously dysfunctional by a daughter's apparent suicide four years before. His hosts' remaining daughter, Lily, greets him coldly and starts a campaign of surreptitious harassment designed to enrage him beyond control. Why? Powerless to stop her and unable to make her parents believe that she needs help, David hangs on grimly, meanwhile trying to fit in at a new school and finding there an unexpected friend. 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: realizing in the nick of time that he's not the only killer in the family, David races into a burning house to save Lily from suicide, then promises her that she won't be alone with her anguish any longer. With this tautly plotted thriller, rich in complex, finely drawn characters, Werlin more than fulfills the promise of her first novel, Are You Alone on Purpose? (1994). (Reviewed September 1, 1998)¾: John Peters.

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