Red Dragon (Hannibal Lecter Series #1)

In the realm of psychological suspense, Thomas Harris stands alone. exploring both the nature of human evil and the nerve-racking anatomy of forensic investigation, Harris unleashes a frightening vision of the dark side of our well-lighted world. In this extraordinary tale -- which preceded The Silence of the Lambs and Hannibal, Harris introduced the unforgettable character Dr. Hannibal Lecter. And in it, Will Graham -- the FBI man who hunted Lecter down -- risks his sanity and his life to duel a killer called...

A quiet summer night...a neat suburban house...and another happy family is shattered -- the latest victims of a grisly series of hideous sacrificial killings that no one understands, and no one can stop. Nobody lives to tell of the unimaginable carnage. Only the blood-stained walls bear witness.

All hope rests on the Special Agent Will Graham, who must peer inside the killer's tortured soul to understand his rage, to anticipate and prevent his next vicious crime. Desperate for help, Graham finds himself locked in a deadly alliance with the brilliant Dr. Hannibal Lecter -- the infamous mass murderer who Graham put in prison years ago. As the imprisoned Lecter tightens the reins of revenge, Graham's feverish pursuit of the Red Dragon draws him inside the warped mind of a psychopath,, into an unforgettable world of demonic ritual and violence, beyond the limits of human terror.

A second family has been massacred by the terrifying serial killer the press has christened “The Tooth Fairy.” Special Agent Jack Crawford turns to the one man who can help restart a failed investigation—Will Graham. Graham is the greatest profiler the FBI ever had, but the physical and mental scars of capturing Hannibal Lecter have caused Graham to go into early retirement. Now, Graham must turn to Lecter for help.

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Critic Jospeh Amie, writing in theSaturday Review, observed: "The suspense is sustained by deft characterizations, fascinating crime-lab details, and a twisting plot, and understated prose," while Newsweek's Jean Strouse deemed Red Dragon "gruesome, appalling, occasionally formulaic and mechanical," but "guaranteed to terrify and succeed." In the New York Times Book Review Thomas Fleming recommends the book for "those who like their flesh to crawl."

Insightful. Cunning. Mysteriously elusive. Wickedly dark. Such descriptions could just as easily apply to novelist Thomas Harris as they could to his most famous creation -- one of the most notorious literary (and cinematic) villains of all time, Hannibal Lecter.