yet another writer, but a reader also

[John]

... and I didn't see mention of two of my favorites thriller writers, Thomas Harris of Hannibal fame, and John Sandford of Lucas Davenport and 'Prey' series.

Maybe I just missed them. Or is this not the place for such ...?

[Dorie]

Yep, you got the right place, John. I know there are a few Sandford fans around. Welcome to the group!

[Donna, Co-Moderator]

Welcome John. I think you'll find fans of everything from cozies to serial killers!

[John]

Hey thanks Dorie and Donna (D&D ?). Glad to be in the right spot. As for Sandford's Prey series, I read maybe the first four or five and then drifted away. Not because they still weren't good, but the long series thing is not something that holds my interest for long.

Harris hasn't written so many that I wane away. I've read all of his. Really powerful stuff, though I thought Hannibal could have been edited a bit tighter, the way Silence of the Lambs was, or Hannibal Rising.

A concept Harris wrote about that pops in mind periodically was the way Hannibal 'saw' classical music (Brahms?) as a series of crystalline notes drifting through the air ... even as he contemplated murder. Chilling dichotomy.

[[deleted user]]

Hi John, and welcome.

I don't know John Sandford, but I have read The Silence of the Lambs. It gave me the willies so bad that I don't think I'll read another. (I'm such a wimp!)

[Jan C]

I read Red Dragon and it was a bit more than I was expecting at the time. I didn't read Silence of the Lamb for a very long time. It seemed to me almost tame in comparison. Of course, maybe RD built up more in my imagination remembering it than had actually been there.

[John]

Hi Hayes, thanks for the welcome. Harris does hit pretty hard ... I'm not always in the mood for the rough stuff but I like his style, and Sandford's.

Jan, that's interesting. I thought Silence really flew; it was edited to the barest of bones. Don't know if he had a different editor for that one vs. Red Dragon, or the others but it seemed like he had scaled back his prose a bit. As for the impact, maybe we hadn't read anything so vivid as Red before, so when Silence hit is wasn't as new to the psyche ?

[Jan C]

I was just thinking that by the time I got around to Silence that maybe I had absorbed a lot of the vividness of Red Dragon. Because I remember Red Dragon was one of those rare books that were so vivid that I had to put it down for a while. In Cold Blood and a book about the Gestapo are the only other ones I've had to put down. I was 16 when I first tried In Cold Blood.

[James]

I'm rereading Red Dragon right now. I actually think it may be scarier the second time around...

[John]

... because you know what bad stuff is going to happen to the characters who are currently alive as you read?

I can see that, if so.

I have never read In Cold Blood. Sounds like a must read? The insinuation I just read of it was Capote was trying to generate empathy ... for the killers. Is this true?

[Jan C]

In Cold Blood was good. The only bad part was about the actual murder. I think I must have put it down for about 2-4 years. But, I wasn't actually in the same location as the book for most of that time. But when I was recovering from an automobile accident I read just about everything I could find.

[John]

thanks Jan. I'll give it a go someday.