#27 Hannibal Rising

Thomas Harris has written five books in the last thirty-two years. The first two are great. The third, Silence of the Lambs, is amazing. Then, ten years later, he gave us Hannibal, is pretty lousy. I thought Hannibal and Clarice ending up together was dumb. (I don't care who I ruin it for.) And the latest, Hannibal Rising, which is just god-awful. It tells us where Hannibal Lecter came from, why he's so evil. Let me go ahead and ruin it for you: Hannibal was forced to eat his little sister when he was a kid. There. That's the big mystery. Lame, isn't it? I don't think we really needed to know. It could have been because he didn't get a pony when he was eight, it doesn't matter. We love Hannibal because he seems so bad for no reason. I don't know what I was hoping for from Hannibal Rising, but being disappointed again was not it. And Harris may as well have just published the script for the film, the book was clearly written only for that purpose. Not worth a handful of fava beans...