An anticlimax, not a climax (Hannibal - Thomas Harris)

Member Name: jillmurphy

Product:	Hannibal - Thomas Harris
Date:	05/07/00 (29 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Well written, tense thriller

Disadvantages: Doesn't stand up to the first two.

I bought Hannibal expecting the sort of 'get to the next page quick' tension that I had experience reading the first two books in this trilogy.

Unfortunately I don't think Hannibal lives up to it's two predecessors at all. Probably if this had been a stand alone book I would have liked it better. Hannibal Lecter was as deliciously revolting, or revoltingly delicious as ever - what a fantastic character study he is.

However I think that a trilogy should be conceived as a trilogy in the first place by an author and it was painfully obvious that this book was written under pressure from Harris' publisher and the movie companies. It just felt all along that he was writing the book reluctantly.

The character of Clarice Starling loses authenticity after she is thrown out of the FBI, she seems to lose the strength of purpose which was so striking through Silence of the Lambs, and it doesn't seem real.

Don't get me wrong - this is a good book, well written, it just doesn't have the stature of the other two.

Summary: