Small town Lily, Arkansas has suffered a lot of loss.

Seventeen year old Cullen has lost his cousin to an overdose and then his younger brother Gabriel disappears. What does seem to have come back is an extinct Lazarus woodpecker whose sightings frustrate Cullen by rousing more attention than his brother's disappearance. 

The mystery "Where Things Come Back" is told with an edge of dark humor and has a conclusion that makes you stop, ponder and reread.

John Corey Whaley's first novel won the American Library Association's Michale L. Printz Award for excellence in young adult literature. It steps away from the flood of vampire and zombie teen novels. Well, almost, as there is one chapter in which Cullen imagines his life as a scene from a zombie flick.

Have an iPod Touch, an iPhone or an iPad? YALSA (Young Adult Library Services Association) has created a free Teen Book Finder app to help you find more great reads. www.ala.org/yalsa/products/teenbookfinder