Hannibal (Hannibal Lecter #3)

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

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....

From the Paperback edition.

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

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.

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