Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

As an avid fan who counts RED DRAGON and THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS among the greatest suspense novels of all time, I was eager to read 1999's HANNIBAL and this new book. As it turned out, I didn't much care for HANNIBAL, but even that was better than this one. I'm very disappointed. This new novel is supposed to fill in details of the childhood and origins of Hannibal Lecter, but it is a far cry from the earlier books in style and quality. It is a series of short, sketchy chapters that reads like what it probably is, a swiftly produced novelization of a screenplay (the movie is already made and will be released soon). What we get is a lot of half-baked psychology and endless scenes of nauseating violence designed for no other purpose than to shock and revolt us. The central character himself barely makes an impression; he's almost--perish the thought--boring. And the rest of the cast is even less interesting. The writing throughout the book is surprisingly bad, and I'm having a hard time believing it is actually the work of Thomas Harris. I guess teenagers may love this nonsense, and they'll all rush out and see the movie, too. The rest of us will have to cherish our memories of Harris's earlier novels and pretend this one never happened. But it did happen, and it will be a huge bestseller, and Thomas Harris will laugh all the way to the bank. How sad.