Horror lit's head chef Harris serves up another course in his Hannibal "The Cannibal" Lecter trilogy, and it's a pièce de résistance for those with strong stomachs. In the first book, Red Dragon (filmed as Manhunter), Hannibal diabolically helps the FBI track a fascinating serial killer. (Takes one to know one.) In The Silence of the Lambs, he advises fledgling FBI manhunter Clarice Starling, then makes a bloody, brilliant escape.

Years later, 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.

What happens when the Italian cop gets alone with Hannibal? How does Clarice's reunion with Lecter go from macabre to worse? Suffice it to say that the plot is Harris's weirdest, but it still has his signature mastery of realistic detail. There are flaws: Hannibal's madness gets a motive, which is creepy but lessens his mystery. If you want an exact duplicate of The Silence of the Lambs's Clarice/Hannibal duel, you'll miss what's cool about this book--that Hannibal is actually upstaged at points by other monsters. And if you think it's all unprecedentedly horrible, you're right. But note that the horrors are described with exquisite taste. Harris's secret recipe for success is restraint. --Tim Appelo


From Publishers Weekly
This narrative roils along a herky-jerky vector but remains always mesmerizing, as Harris's prose and insights, particularly his reveries about Hannibal, boast power and an overripe beauty. If at times the suspense slackens and the story slips into silliness, it becomes clear that this is a post-suspense novel, as much sardonic philosophical jest as grand-guignol thriller. Hannibal, we learnA"we" because Harris seduces reader complicity with third-person-plural narrationAis not as we presumed. The monster's aim is not chaos, but order. Through his devotion to manners and the connoisseur's life, in fact to form itself, he hopesAconsciouslyAto reverse entropy and thus the flow of time, to allow a dead sister to live again. He is not Dionysius but Apollo, and it is the barbarians who oppose him who are to be despised. Hannibal may be mad, but in this brilliant, bizarre, absurd novelAas in the public eyeAhe is also hero; and so, at novel's end, in blackest humor, Harris bestows upon him a hero's rewards, outrageously, mockingly. Agent, Morton Janklow. 1.3 million first printing; film rights to Dino De Laurentis. (June) Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
Eleven years after thrilling readers with his classic suspense novel, Silence of the Lambs, Harris returns with a vengeance in this, the third and presumably final novel in the trilogy (the first was Red Dragon) featuring monstrous serial killer Dr. Hannibal Lecter. At the tale's outset, FBI agent Clarise Starling, young and ambitious in Silence, is slated to take the fall for a botched arrest. Yet when a manipulative millionaire revives the FBI's interest in the still-at-large Lecter, Starling is reunited with her mentor, Jack Crawford, and sets to work on tracking the good doctor. Although Harris's occasional lapses into baroque language and the novel's confusing, dreamy ending mar an otherwise perfect thriller, enormous patron demand makes this a necessary purchase in even the smallest public library.AMark Annichiarico, formerly with "Library Journal" Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.


The New York Times Book Review, Stephen King
Hannibal is really not a sequel at all, but rather the third and most satisfying part of one very long and scary ride through the haunted palace of abnormal psychiatry.


Entertainment Weekly, Owen Gleiberman
His brilliance as a writer has always been his ability to lure you into a conspiratorial relationship with the most scandalous extremes of his imagination.


The Wall Street Journal, Bob Hughes
With Hannibal, Mr. Harris has devised an unlikely, unsentimental romance out of invidious deeds.


From AudioFile
Hannibal Lecter, the gruesome serial killer who escaped at the end of SILENCE OF THE LAMBS, is living high off the hog in Florence when he discovers (through nefarious channels) that his FBI nemesis, Clarice Starling, is in the midst of a career crisis. Falling prey to his obsession with her, he inadvertently sets himself up to be captured, not by the FBI, but by a mortal enemy who intends to feed him alive to wild boars. Reader Thomas Harris has plumbed the inner depths of the monstrous Lecter--after all, he created him--and his familiarity, not surprisingly, informs his energetic reading. The surprise is his portrayal of Clarice Starling, who is utterly credible as the young victim of class and gender distinctions in the FBI. In tones that reveal both femininity and determination, Harris's voice embodies the personal history that makes her so vulnerable and so ambitious. Smatterings of precise Italian also makes perfectly believable Lecter's Florentine pursuers. E.K.D. (c) AudioFile, Portland, Maine


Review
"Strap yourself in for one heck of a ride -- it'll scare your socks off."
-- The Denver Post

"Relentless -- endlessly terrifying."
-- Los Angeles Times

"Interested in getting the hell scared out of you? Buy this book on a Friday ... lock all doors and windows. And by Monday, you might just be able to sleep without a night-light."
-- Newsday

Don't miss Thomas Harris's New York Times bestsellers:
Red Dragon
Black Sunday


From the Paperback edition.


Review
"Strap yourself in for one heck of a ride -- it'll scare your socks off."
-- The Denver Post

"Relentless -- endlessly terrifying."
-- Los Angeles Times

"Interested in getting the hell scared out of you? Buy this book on a Friday ... lock all doors and windows. And by Monday, you might just be able to sleep without a night-light."
-- Newsday

Don't miss Thomas Harris's New York Times bestsellers:
Red Dragon
Black Sunday


From the Paperback edition.


Book Description
Invite Hannibal Lecter into the palace of your mind and be invited into his mind palace in turn. Note the similarities in yours and his, the high vaulted chambers of your dreams, the shadowed halls, the locked storerooms where you dare not go, the scrap of half-forgotten music, the muffled cries from behind a wall.In one of the most eagerly anticipated literary events of the decade, Thomas Harris takes us once again into the mind of a killer, crafting a chilling portrait of insidiously evolving evil--a tour de force of psychological suspense. Seven years have passed since Dr. Hannibal Lecter escaped from custody, seven years since FBI Special Agent Clarice Starling interviewed him in a maximum security hospital for the criminally insane. The doctor is still at large, pursuing his own ineffable interests, savoring the scents, the essences of an unguarded world. But Starling has never forgotten her encounters with Dr. Lecter, and the metallic rasp of his seldom-used voice still sounds in her dreams. Mason Verger remembers Dr. Lecter, too, and is obsessed with revenge. He was Dr. Lecter's sixth victim, and he has survived to rule his own butcher's empire. From his respirator, Verger monitors every twitch in his worldwide web. Soon he sees that to draw the doctor, he must have the most exquisite and innocent-appearing bait; he must have what Dr. Lecter likes best. Powerful, hypnotic, utterly original, Hannibal is a dazzling feast for the imagination. Prepare to travel to hell and beyond as a master storyteller permanently alters the world you thought you knew.


From the Inside Flap
Invite Hannibal Lecter into the palace of your mind and be invited into his mind palace in turn.  Note the similarities in yours and his, the high vaulted chambers of your dreams, the shadowed halls, the locked storerooms where you dare not go, the scrap of half-forgotten music, the muffled cries from behind a wall.

In one of the most eagerly anticipated literary events of the decade, Thomas Harris takes us once again into the mind of a killer, crafting a chilling portrait of insidiously evolving evil--a tour de force of psychological suspense.  

Seven years have passed since Dr. Hannibal Lecter escaped from custody, seven years since FBI Special Agent Clarice Starling interviewed him in a maximum security hospital for the criminally insane.  The doctor is still at large, pursuing his own ineffable interests, savoring the scents, the essences of an unguarded world.  But Starling has never forgotten her encounters with Dr. Lecter, and the metallic rasp of his seldom-used voice still sounds in her dreams.  

Mason Verger remembers Dr. Lecter, too, and is obsessed with revenge.  He was Dr. Lecter's sixth victim, and he has survived to rule his own butcher's empire.  From his respirator, Verger monitors every twitch in his worldwide web.  Soon he sees that to draw the doctor, he must have the most exquisite and innocent-appearing bait; he must have what Dr. Lecter likes best.  

Powerful, hypnotic, utterly original, Hannibal is a dazzling feast for the imagination.  Prepare to travel to hell and beyond as a master storyteller permanently alters the world you thought you knew.

FROM OUR EDITORS

Luckily for us, seven years is all the R and R creator Thomas Harris allowed his brilliant, mad, and strangely charming Dr. Hannibal Lecter. Yes, the better part of a decade elapsed after then-FBI trainee Clarice Starling exposed her haunting childhood memory to the fascinated Lecter. Though Lecter assured Starling, at the end of The Silence of the Lambs, that he believed the world a better place with her in it, all that may change in Hannibal, as the doctor reawakens Starling's nightmare.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Dr. Hannibal Lecter, the serial killer from The Silence of the Lambs whose portrayal on film earned Anthony Hopkins an Academy Award, and who for many, is the ultimate villain in modern fiction, is back with a vengeance. ￯﾿ﾽHannibal the Cannibal￯﾿ﾽ is at the center of the first novel in more than a decade by his creator, Thomas Harris.

Hannibal also features the reappearance from The Silence of the Lambs of FBI Special Agent Clarice Starling, portrayed in the movie by Jodie Foster, who also won an Oscar for her performance. The new novel opens seven years after Dr. Lecter￯﾿ﾽs stunning escape from the authorities, the climax of the earlier book, as one of his earlier victims uses Agent Starling as bait to draw the doctor into an intricate and unspeakable design for revenge.

SYNOPSIS

Seven years after Dr. Hannibal Lecter's escape from the authorities, the climax of Silence of the Lambs, one of his earlier victims uses Agent Starling as bait to draw the doctor into an intricate and unspeakable design for revenge.

FROM THE CRITICS

Christopher Lehmann-Haupt - The New York Times

...[G]reat is the fund of fascination with Lecter built up in Mr. Harris's previous novels — for his being a superman embodying absolute yet comprehensible evil...that almost nothing can dissipate his malign attraction....Hannibal remains full of wonderful touches, typical of Mr. Harris's grasp of arcane detail.

Publishers Weekly

Hannibal the cannibal is back again, and in this special audio version, listeners are treated to the author's unique and riveting interpretation of his characters' voices and personalities. Having escaped captivity in The Silence of the Lambs, Dr. Hannibal Lecter has been living on the sly in Europe, leading the life of a sophisticated, academic gentleman. But Hannibal has left behind one sloppy mistake: a victim named Mason Verger, who was accused of molesting his own children but managed to avoid jail provided he sought psychiatric treatment with Dr. Lecter. Hannibal has left Verger barely alive, and, bent on revenge, this man who is as much a monster as Hannibal buys off a cadre of corrupt government agents to find his nemesis. (As an interesting aside for listeners, Hannibal has left Verger lipless, and Harris's vocal rendition of this character is particularly eerie.) Simultaneously, Clarice Starling, the FBI agent who sought Dr. Lecter's assistance in finding another killer in The Silence of the Lambs, is also on his trail, while, in turn, Hannibal is seeking Clarice, for whom he shows a curious affection. As the two eventually find each other, the listener is treated to an incredibly disturbing and shocking conclusion. (Feb.) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

Hannibal is, of course, Harris's long-awaited sequel to The Silence of the Lambs, which so thoroughly propelled the brilliant psychiatrist-cannibal into the popular imagination. We catch up with Lecter in Florence where he is living a scholarly life and rarely murders anyone but is still obsessed with FBI special agent Clarice Starling. He is nearly captured in Florence, after which the FBI and Starling are back on his trail. Also tracking Lecter is another monster, Mason Verger, his only surviving victim. Verger is mutilated, paralyzed, and on a respirator but has resources enough at his disposal to co-opt and manipulate the FBI's investigation in his quest for vengeance. The strong and likable Starling is doubly betrayed, first by the FBI and then by Harris himself, as the novel stumbles to its bizarre and unlikely conclusion. The author reads his own work with remarkable skill and precision--an ironic but welcome asset to this program, which is an adequate abridgment.--Kristen L. Smith, Loras Coll. Lib., Dubuque, IA Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.

AudioFile - Elizabeth K. Dodge

Hannibal Lecter, the gruesome serial killer who escaped at the end of SILENCE OF THE LAMBS, is living high off the hog in Florence when he discovers (through nefarious channels) that his FBI nemesis, Clarice Starling, is in the midst of a career crisis. Falling prey to his obsession with her, he inadvertently sets himself up to be captured, not by the FBI, but by a mortal enemy who intends to feed him alive to wild boars. Reader Thomas Harris has plumbed the inner depths of the monstrous Lecter￯﾿ﾽafter all, he created him￯﾿ﾽand his familiarity, not surprisingly, informs his energetic reading. The surprise is his portrayal of Clarice Starling, who is utterly credible as the young victim of class and gender distinctions in the FBI. In tones that reveal both femininity and determination, Harris's voice embodies the personal history that makes her so vulnerable and so ambitious. Smatterings of precise Italian also makes perfectly believable Lecter's Florentine pursuers. E.K.D. ￯﾿ﾽ AudioFile, Portland, Maine

Stephen King - The New York Times Book Review