BookBrowse Reviews Yellow by Janni Visman

BookBrowse:

A taut, maze-like narrative that will entrap you within pages. Psychological Thriller.

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Yellow received high praise when first published in the UK in early 2004, with The Times Literary Supplement saying, 'Simple but highly effective, Yellow sets the net curtains of one's mind a twitch,' and The Daily Mail describing it as 'a taut, maze-like narrative that will entrap you within pages.' Opinion in the USA has been a little more mixed - most offer praise but a few, such as the reviewer for Publishers Weekly, are less enthusiastic saying, "Visman does turn out some sharp prose while keeping readers guessing, but Stella is too grating to hold readers' sympathy, even when she deserves it."

In response to PW I would ask, since when do we have to like a character to appreciate good writing?  Visman says that she was inspired by Hitchcock's Vertigo (1958) and Booklist describes Yellow as "like Ruth Rendell at her best, but with a mordant hipness.   So, if you enjoy psychological thrillers with a good dollop of menace and paranoia, click below to browse an excerpt from this excellent second novel.

This review was originally published in The BookBrowse Review in July 2005, and has been updated for the July 2006 edition. Click here to go to this issue.