Hannibal by Thomas Harris

Hannibal by Thomas Harris
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Time taken to read - in and out over 1 week

Pages - 564

Publisher - Arrow

Source - Bought

Blurb from Goodreads

Years after his escape, posing as scholarly Dr. Fell, curator of a grand family's palazzo, Hannibal lives the good life in Florence, playing lovely tunes by serial killer/composer Henry VIII and killing hardly anyone himself. Clarice is unluckier: in the novel's action-film-like opening scene, she survives an FBI shootout gone wrong, and her nemesis, Paul Krendler, makes her the fall guy. Clarice is suspended, so, unfortunately, the first cop who stumbles on Hannibal is an Italian named Pazzi, who takes after his ancestors, greedy betrayers depicted in Dante's Inferno. Pazzi is on the take from a character as scary as Hannibal: Mason Verger. When Verger was a young man busted for raping children, his vast wealth saved him from jail. All he needed was psychotherapy--with Dr. Lecter. Thanks to the treatment, Verger is now on a respirator, paralyzed except for one crablike hand, watching his enormous, brutal moray eel swim figure eights and devour fish. His obsession is to feed Lecter to some other brutal pets.



My Review

Hannibal is still loose, Starling is struggling in her career after a high profile shooting and someone higher up has it out for her. Many people are after Lecter, none more so than Mason Verger one of Hannibal's only surviving victims. Verger has money and despite his disabilities at the hands of Lecter he has fury, evil and money at his disposal and will stop at nothing to make Lecter pay.

We flip between Hannibal's current situation, Verger's plotting, Starling's uphill battle with her career and the shady male colleagues who are happy to step on her. Starling wants to recapture Lecter and as per goes above and beyond to do what needs done, to her own detriment.

If you are a fan of the series you will enjoy it, I think this one is pretty gruesome and some real shady dirtbag deviant characters. Some parts I felt I needed to wash my eyeballs out after reading *shudders* - not as good as the previous two but give me a story with Hannibal Lecter and I am going to read it, 3.5/5 for me this time.

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Red Dragon by Thomas Harris

Red Dragon by Thomas Harris
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Time to taken to read - < 3 days

Pages - 454

Publisher - Arrow books

Source - Bought

Blurb from Goodreads

A second family has been massacred by the terrifying serial killer the press has christened "The Tooth Fairy." Special Agent Jack Crawford turns to the one man who can help restart a failed investigation: Will Graham. Graham is the greatest profiler the FBI ever had, but the physical and mental scars of capturing Hannibal Lecter have caused Graham to go into early retirement. Now, Graham must turn to Lecter for help.


My Review

The first book introducing Hannibal Lecter, I first heard of him after watching The Silence of the Lambs movie. To know there are four books and this is book one, brilliant. There is a predator, targeting families, always a mum, dad, kids and a family pet. He is methodical and he will keep going until he is stopped, he is strategic, smart and leaves no clues. The FBI calls on the help of Will Graham, an FBI profiler who has something the team doesn't, something that helps him get in the head of these specialist type bad guys. He also adds to his belt being the one who caught and only just survived Hannibal Lecter. In order to to what needs done he must face his fears, past traumas and come face to face with Lecter.

Oh I loved the movie, Will played by Edward Norton and that's how I see/hear him in this book. Harris has a way of creating the scenes and characters that grips you pretty much from the beginning and plays out vividly in your head. Gruesome, repugnant, shocking and brings to life two of the most shocking killers in crime fiction, the "Tooth Fairy" and Doctor Hannibal Lecter.

I bought the four of these books, I have read three previously but it was like coming at it as a new reader, it stays fresh and there was things I forgot, 5/5 for me!

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