Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

What unspeakable crud "Hannibal Rising" is. If you thought that parts of "Hannibal" were bad (especially that ridiculous ending), believe me it's a masterpiece compared to this new one. Words fail to say just how bad this book is. (For one thing, if Harris is going to have foreign-language quotations, at least get their spelling right!) How odd it is that Harris doesn't even seem to understand his own characters; that we the readers know Dr. Lecter better than the author does. The plot of this novel sets up the improbable situation that Lecter was the product of abuse by the Nazis and hence his insanity. Aw, poor li'l Hannibal; he couldn't help himself. This portrait is just inconsistent with the character we came to know so well in the earlier novels. Why doesn't Harris sell this character to another novelist who can treat Lecter with more creativity and credibility? Yes, there are a couple of good scenes. But they don't make up for the dozens of awful ones.