The Silence of the Lambs: 25th Anniversary Edition (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

Review

"Razor-sharp entertainment, beautifully constructed and brilliantly written. Thrillers don't come any better than this." --Clive Barker

"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

"A psychological thriller so deftly woven and gripping that a reader can hardly get through one sentence fast enough to discover what's in the next." --Associated Press

"Superb!...Harris's chilling story lowers the reader's blood temperature by several degrees." --The New York Times

"A thriller to out-thrill all thrillers...impossible to put down!" --Detroit News

"A real roller coaster, full of hairpin turns, sickening descents and sudden accelerations." --New York Newsday

"A spine-tingling, vastly entertaining crime story...[by] a master of suspense...ingeniously macabre." --Boston Herald

"It's marvelous, the best book I've read for a very long time...It is infinitely superior to any novel published this year." --Roald Dahl

"The Silence of the Lambs will haunt for a long time; Harris places his clues and his carnage with precision." --Philadelphia Inquirer

"As remarkable as its predecessor...some of the most powerful and entertaining fiction of our time!" --The Washington Post

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

"Without a doubt, [Harris is] one of the most powerful writers of suspense fiction today!" --Milwaukee Journal

"Harris has once again hit us in the solar plexus. This is, in fact, a better read than Red Dragon, which is all you need to know...A page-turner, one of those books that, once picked up, becomes immediately addictive." --Cleveland Plain Dealer

"The plot unreels rapidly...Hooks the reader and keeps the tension taut until the end." --Portland Oregonian

"I read the first sentence of this book, threw up my hands and then stayed up all night to finish. It didn't matter, I've scarcely slept since." --Liz Smith

"One of the most gripping reads of the year." --Kirkus Reviews

"Thrilling effective...Harris understands the crafting of literary terror as very few writers do; readers who put themselves in his good, cold-blooded hands will lose sleep and demand a sequel." --Publishers Weekly

"Intelligent, fast-paced...Hard to put down." --Library Journal

"Beautifully written." --San Francisco Chronicle

Edition details

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