The Silence of the Lambs (Hannibal Lecter) - Softcover

Harris, Thomas

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1250048095 ISBN 13: 9781250048097

Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin, 2013

Synopsis

The twenty-fifth anniversary edition of the #1 New York Times bestselling classic, now with a note by author Thomas Harris revealing his inspiration for Hannibal Lecter.

A serial murderer known only by a grotesquely apt nickname―Buffalo Bill―is stalking particular women. He has a purpose, but no one can fathom it, for the bodies are discovered in different states. Clarice Starling, a young trainee at the F.B.I. Academy, is surprised to be summoned by Jack Crawford, Chief of the Bureau's Behavioral Science section. Her assignment: to interview Dr. Hannibal Lecter, a brilliant psychiatrist and grisly killer now kept under close watch in the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane. Lecter's insight into the minds of murderers could help track and capture Buffalo Bill.

Smart and attractive, Starling is shaken to find herself in a strange, intense relationship with the acutely perceptive Lecter. His cryptic clues―about Buffalo Bill and about her―launch Clarice on a search that every reader will find startling, harrowing, and totally compelling.

An ingenious, masterfully written novel, The Silence of the Lambs is a classic of suspense and storytelling.

About this title

Review:

The Silence of the Lambs, by Thomas Harris, is even better than the successful movie. Like his earlier Red Dragon, the book takes us inside the world of professional criminal investigation. All the elements of a well-executed thriller are working here--driving suspense, compelling characters, inside information, publicity-hungry bureaucrats thwarting the search, and the clock ticking relentlessly down toward the death of another young woman. What enriches this well-told tale is the opportunity to live inside the minds of both the crime fighters and the criminals as each struggles in a prison of pain and seeks, sometimes violently, relief.

Clarice Starling, a precociously self-disciplined FBI trainee, is dispatched by her boss, Section Chief Jack Crawford, the FBI's most successful tracker of serial killers, to see whether she can learn anything useful from Dr. Hannibal Lecter. Lecter's a gifted psychopath whose nickname is "The Cannibal" because he likes to eat parts of his victims. Isolated by his crimes from all physical contact with the human race, he plays an enigmatic game of "Clue" with Starling, providing her with snippets of data that, if she is smart enough, will lead her to the criminal. Undaunted, she goes where the data takes her. As the tension mounts and the bureaucracy thwarts Starling at every turn, Crawford tells her, "Keep the information and freeze the feelings." Insulted, betrayed, and humiliated, Starling struggles to focus. If she can understand Lecter's final, ambiguous scrawl, she can find the killer. But can she figure it out in time? --Barbara Schlieper

From the Publisher:

Praise for The Silence of the Lambs:

"A virtual textbook on the craft of suspense. A masterwork of sheer momentum that rockets seamlessly toward its climax.... Harris is quite simply the best suspense novelist working today." The Washington Post

"Superb." --The New York Times

"Beautifully written." --The San Francisco Examiner

"Fast paced...intriguing...exciting." --Chicago Tribune

About this edition

• Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 1250048095
• ISBN 13: 9781250048097
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 368