The Killer's Cousin by Nancy Werlin

Werlin, Nancy. (2000) The Killer's Cousin. NY: Laurel Leaf.
ISBN: 978-0440227519
Awards: Edgar Award (Young Adult, 1999)
Edgar Award, Young Adult (1999)
ALA Best Books for Young Adults (1999)
Garden State Book Award (Teen Fiction Grades 9-12, 2001)BCCB Blue Ribbon Book (1998)
ALA Popular Paperbacks for Young Adults (2003.01 | I’ve Got a Secret, 2003)
ALA Quick Picks for Reluctant Young Adult Readers - Top Ten (1999)
ALA Quick Picks for Reluctant Young Adult Readers (1999)
Amazing Audiobooks for Young Adults (2010)
Bibliotherapeutic Usefulness: Suicide, Guilt, Violence, Love
Genre: Fiction
Annotation: Seventeen year old David is sent to live with his aunt, uncle, and young cousin, Lily, after being acquitted in a highly public murder trial. Joining a strange household where Lily's older sister committed suicide, David realizes that Lily has a few secrets of her own.
Summary: After David accidentally causes his girlfriends death, he is involved in a highly publicized trial. He is acquitted of the murder, but his parents attempt to reduce the impact of this event on his life by sending him to live with his aunt and uncle. In the house lives his cousin Lily, an angry eleven year old still reeling from her older sister, Kathy's, suicide four years earlier. At first David and Lily circle one another with distrust, but Lily soon is breaking into his attic apartment and destroying things. The attic where Kathy lived and killed herself. Meanwhile, Kathy's ghost appears to David, telling him to save Lily. David discovers that Lily killed, or believes that she killed, her sister. The relationship between David and Lily peeks when he tells her parents that she need psychological help and they kick him out. Finally, Lily cracks and tries to kill herself by burning the house down, but David hears Kathy's voice and runs to pull Lily out of the fire engulfed house. This saves Lily both physically and psychologically and creates a fierce bond between the two killers who must live with what they have done.
Evaluation: I read Werlin's book Impossible awhile back and really enjoyed the intertwining of contemporary fiction and magic. This story is not different. Usually a book with magic will focus on the magical elements in a story, but Werlin manages to focus on reality that just happens to include the supernatural. Great book!