The Killer's Cousin

The Killer’s Cousin. Nancy Werlin. New York: Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc., 1998. 229pp.
David Bernard Yaffe, the main character, was a normal teenager and then something terrible happened. He couldn’t live in the same town as he used to, so his parents sent him off to live in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with his aunt and uncle and his cousin Lily. David’s aunt and uncle told him that he could live upstairs in the attic. Something had happened in Massachusetts with Lily’s older sister and the family is not supposed to talk about it. He was ok with living there, until his cousin Lily starts acting strange around him when she found out that he was living up in the attic. He starts to see moving shadows in the dark and weird things start to happen. David was curious so he decided to check things out. What he discovered was something he never thought would be possible. I would recommend this book to people of fourteen years and up.
The Killer’s Cousin is a great book if you like suspense and a little bit of thrill. This book really caught my attention on the very first page I read. This book is unique because it has little important details that readers should and will be able to recognize. I thought Nancy Werlin should have let the readers learn a little bit more about David Yaffe’s life before the “accident.” This book compares to other suspense books because it makes readers think about what they just read and put the clues together. It’s like a thriller because the dark and mysterious shadows frighten David. I think the characters David and Lily were most convincing because the author stuck with ideas that the characters would most likely think of. I would rank The Killer’s Cousin an 8 out of 10.
Reviewed by Melissa