Hannibal: A Novel (Hannibal Lecter) - Softcover

Harris, Thomas

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0440224675 ISBN 13: 9780440224679

Publisher: Dell, 2000

Synopsis

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - "Is it as good as Red Dragon and Silence of the Lambs? No . . . this one is better."--Stephen King, The New York Times Book Review

You remember Hannibal Lecter: gentleman, genius, cannibal. Seven years have passed since Dr. Lecter escaped from custody. And for seven years he's been at large, free to savor the scents, the essences, of an unguarded world.

But intruders have entered Dr. Lecter's world, piercing his new identity, sensing the evil that surrounds him. For the multimillionaire Hannibal left maimed, for a corrupt Italian policeman, and for FBI agent Clarice Starling, who once stood before Lecter and who has never been the same, the final hunt for Hannibal Lecter has begun. All of them, in their separate ways, want to find Dr. Lecter. And all three will get their wish. But only one will live long enough to savor the reward. . . .

Praise for Hannibal

"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

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

"A stunner . . . writing in language as bright and precise as a surgeon's scalpel, Harris has created a world as mysterious as Hannibal's memory palace and as disturbing as a Goya painting. This is one book you don't want to read alone at night."--The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

"Relentless . . . endlessly terrifying . . . 486 fast-paced pages, in which every respite is but a prelude to further furious action . . . Hannibal begins with a murderous paroxysm that leaves the reader breathless. . . . Hannibal speaks to the imagination, to the feelings, to the passions, to exalted senses and to debased ones. Harris's voice will be heard for a while."--Los Angeles Times

"A pleasurable sense of dread."--The Wall Street Journal

"Enormously satisfying . . . a smashing good time, turning the pages for thrills, chills, horror and finally, a bracing, deliciously wicked slap in the face . . . perhaps the very best the thriller/horror genre is capable of producing."--San Diego Union-Tribune

About this title

Review:

Hannibal. Dr Hannibal Lecter. "A brief silence follows the name, always, in any civilized gathering," wrote Thomas Harris at the beginning of his stunning The Silence of the Lambs in 1988. You don't want him in your head, you don't want you in his head. Now, a decade later, Lecter is back--ready to take up his place as one of the cult figures of contemporary fiction. Almost a modern myth, in fact, if the scale, and thrill, of the publication of Hannibal is anything to go by. Harris's book is "news": not only "book news" but "real" news, one of the biggest publishing events of the decade in terms of print run (one million copies worldwide), film rights (Hollywood has paid six million dollars for the book: Anthony Hopkins and Julianne Moore will star) and cultural cachet.

The serial killer--like his counterpart, the psychologist-profiler--is a figure for our times; "In the contemporary mind," as one psychoanalyst, Christopher Bollas, has put it, "the serial killer is the statement of evil". Psychiatrist and killer, Lecter gives a peculiar twist to that evil (and Harris has always been interested in the precarious division between killer and cure). In Red Dragon, published in 1981, Will Graham was one of the first of the fictional profilers thinking and feeling his way into the minds of the killers he pursued. Behind bars, Lecter was a charged, but compelling, presence--an enigma who promised to be a key to psychopathic crime if only someone were genius enough to understand him. Jack Crawford tried, and then Clarice Starling. Now, as if in response to those who wanted to know more, comes Hannibal, a novel which constantly threatens to bring Lecter to life through its (sometimes grisly) pages. "Dr. Hannibal Lecter's fingerprint card is a curiosity and something of a cult object": Harris is the one who knows, who has "been there", and takes his readers into Lecter's world of curious courtesy and exquisite taste, sickening cruelty and loving murder. Both Red Dragon and The Silence of the Lambs were masterpieces of plot and suspense; though complex and plotted, this is rather more "Hannibal's book": no-one who wants to know, and suffer with, Lecter--his past victims, his past life, his strange feelings for Starling--can miss this brilliant piece of mythmaking. --Vicky Lebeau

Review:

"[A] devilish tale . . . eerily realistic and chillingly vivid from beginning to end. As Harris sketches his hideous scenarios, he allows us to color them in with our imaginations. But not overdoing it, he draws us in, practically making us conspirators in his macabre fantasy."--New York Post

"A work of art . . . You'll eat up Hannibal. . . . There isn't a wasted word . . . the last 100 pages are the best I've ever read in the thriller genre."--Larry King, USA Today

"The readers who have been waiting for Hannibal only want to know if it is as good as Red Dragon and The Silence of the Lambs. . . . It is a pleasure to reply in the negative. No, not as good. This one is better. It is, in fact, one of the two most frightening popular novels of our time, the other being The Exorcist. . . . 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. . . . Hannibal is a full-out unabashed horror novel. . . . I hope with all my heart that [Harris] will write again, and sooner rather than later--novels that bravely and cleverly erase the line between popular fiction and literature are very much to be prized."--Stephen King, The New York Times Book Review

"A truly scary book . . . Harris writes with authority and a knack for detail, creating some memorably creepy scenes."--People

"Gothic, fantastic . . . full of wonderful touches."--International Herald Tribune

"A triumph of straightforward, smart prose. Not a word is wasted, not a thought is irrelevant. Harris is a master, and in Hannibal he reached, he stretched, and once again, he grabbed the prize."--Dayton Daily News

"Chilling . . . Hannibal is scary, sometimes unenduringly so . . . you hardly mark the moment when an entertaining novel becomes literature . . . a bizarre book, indeed, but enthrallingly so."--Daily News (New York)

"A magnificently gory page-turner."--Detroit News

"The book takes off . . . into the stratosphere of fantasy, into Hannibal Lecter's private world. . . . a Grand Guignol romp . . . Yet there's still a basso ostinato of serious questions, and the answers are darker than in Silence."--The Nation

"Gripping . . . a page-turning marvel . . . an ingenious plot . . . Harris writes wonderfully here, with elegant poetic rhythms and much striking imagery."--Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

"Diabolically clever . . . Harris serves up a feast in Hannibal. . . . He writes like an angel with the devil's sense of humor. . . . The hypnotic blend of horror story and psychological thriller lifts crime fiction to sublime. . . . Hannibal is ghoulishly good fare."--Boston Herald

"A page-turner . . . Harris works some surprising twists . . . [he] paces the action well."--Houston Chronicle

"A delightfully perverse book . . . Harris is still one of America's best, most daring pop writers."--Time Out New York

About this edition

• Publisher: Dell
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0440224675
• ISBN 13: 9780440224679
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Number of pages: 560