What's It About?
About Writing this Book
Read an Excerpt
Reviews & Awards
Publication Info
What's it About?
Recently acquitted of murder, seventeen-year-old David has moved to Massachusetts to complete his senior year of high school. His aunt and uncle have offered him shelter—escape from the media's questions and from the uncertain glances of his neighbors and ex-friends.
His attic apartment doesn't feel much like a shelter, though. He sees ghostly shadows at night, his aunt is strangely cold, and his eleven-year-old cousin, Lily, is downright hostile. And as Lily's behavior becomes more and more threatening, David can't help wondering why. What ugly secrets lurk within the walls of Lily's home?
There's one thing David knows with certainty. The more he learns about his cousin Lily, the harder it is to avoid thinking about his own past.
About Writing this Book
The Killer's Cousin was my second novel, and it (and I) went through five torturous, hideous, and painful drafts over five years before it reached its final form.
In the first two versions of what was then called Cambridge Gothic, the narrator, David Yaffe, was 26 years old and working as a high school history teacher. He was obsessing over an old girlfriend, yes, but she was very much alive. Right from the beginning, however, the story of his cousin Lily and her family was much as it is in the published book.
It took me a long time to understand that the problem in those initial drafts was David. He was a nice guy; he was concerned about his cousin—but somehow that wasn't enough to draw the reader into the mystery. As you read, you thought: “Who cares?”
In despair, I abandoned the novel and went to work on something else. Then, months later, I had a sudden revelation. Quickly, I wrote a prologue in which I made David eight years younger, and dropped dark hints about his own past.
In short, I turned David into a sympathetic narrator—and tied the two parts of the story together—by making him a killer.
Make of that what you will.
Read an Excerpt
From The Killer's Cousin,
copyright © 1998 by Nancy Werlin.
By the time I got home I felt terrible again. The mail didn't improve matters.
It held a packet called “E-Apply!” which I had actually sent for,
by clicking a button somewhere up in cyberspace. I opened the packet, and
the names of umpteen hundred different colleges and universities danced dizzily
down the information page. At the top a header screamed: “Do it electronically!
Cut and paste your essays! Fast, convenient!” A CD-ROM tumbled out and
I barely caught it. I leaned my shoulder up against the house for a minute.
My father had said the college applications were only permitted to ask if the applicant had ever been convicted of a felony. But it didn't matter; the admissions officers would remember me. They watched high schools for a living, didn't they? They'd have followed the case as a matter of professional interest.
“Hey. You okay?”
There was a tall girl standing next to me, frowning at me solicitously. I hadn't even heard her mount the porch steps. She had loose brown hair. She wore a man's white dress shirt open over a tight T-shirt. Baggy old jeans. Boots. Lipstick. Impartially speaking, and even in my current state, she was enough to make your mouth go dry.
Raina Doumeng. The artist who lived on the first floor; the one with the empty living room.
Somehow I managed to straighten up, and in the process I dropped the CD again. Raina caught it one-handed; looked at it. “Oh, yeah,” she said. “What a nightmare. No wonder you look sick.” She smiled and put out her hand, introduced herself. “I feel for you, really I do. I did all that two years ago. I'm at Tufts now, their joint program with the museum school.” She said it like I was supposed to know what museum she meant.
“David,” I said. I didn't include my last name. I couldn't, just then. She was so beautiful and she was smiling. “I live upstairs.” We shook hands. Hers was callused. I fumbled for something else to say. I didn't want her to go in, to go away. I didn't want to be alone, even though it was better that way. “Uh—why don't you live on campus?”
“Oh, I need room. To paint, for one thing. Plus, I like privacy.” She was examining my face, feature by feature. And suddenly I knew she knew. I knew she was thinking about Emily. Thinking: This is a killer.
Reviews & Awards
- Winner of the 1999 Edgar award for best young adult mystery
- An American Library Association "Best of the Best: Best 100 YA books of the Past 10 Years) selection, 2005.
- Winner of the 2001 Garden State (New Jersey) Teen Book Award
- Winner of Black-Eyed Susan Award (Maryland), High School division, 2000-2001
- Honorable Mention in the Golden and Silver Kisses 2002 award program, from the Dutch Stichting CPNB.
- Texas TAYSHAS high school reading list, 2000
- Evergreen (Washington State) Young Adult Book Award list, 2001
- South Carolina Young Adult Book award list, 2000-2001
- Eliot Rosewater Indiana High School Book award list, 2000-2001
- Tennessee Volunteer State Book Award, YA master reading list, 2002-2003
- Pennsylvania Young Adult recommended list, 2000-2001
- South Dakota Young Adult Reading Program list, 2000
- An ALA Best Book for Young Adults
- An ALA Quick Pick—Top 10
- An ALA Teens' Top 10 Best Book Pick
- An ALA Popular Paperback, 2003
- IRA Young Adult Choice
- A Booklist Editor's Choice
- A Bulletin Blue Ribbon Book
- A New York Public Library Best Book for the Teen Age
- A Bank Street College Best Book of the Year
- A Parent's Guide to Children's Media selection
- Starred reviews in Booklist, Publishers Weekly, School Library Journal, Voya, and Kliatt
Publication Info
- Reading level: Ages 14 and up
- U.S. Hardcover: Delacorte, 1998. ISBN: 0-385-32560-6
- U.S. Paperback: Dell Laurel Leaf, 2000. ISBN: 0-440-22751-8
- U.S. large print: Thorndike, 1999. ISBN: 0-786-22188-7
- Spanish: La Prima del Asesino (Madrid: Ediciones SM, trans. Carlos Gomez Zamorano, 2001)
- Danish: I Familie med en Morder (Copenhagen: CDR Forlag, 2001, trans. Marianne Linneberg Rasmussen)
- Dutch: Schuldig (Netherlands: Kluitman Alkmaar, 2001, trans. Anne Marie Hormann) —Honorable Mention in the Golden and Silver Kisses 2002 program, from the Dutch Stichting CPNB (Collective Promotion of the Dutch Book) award jury.
- British: The Killer's Cousin (HarperCollins Flamingo, April, 2002)
