Hannibal Rising [Paperback]

He is one of the most haunting characters in all of literature. At last the evolution of his evil is revealed. 

Hannibal Lecter emerges from the nightmare of the Eastern Front, a boy in the snow, mute, with a chain around his neck.

He seems utterly alone, but he has brought his demons with him.

Hannibal’s uncle, a noted painter, finds him in a Soviet orphanage and brings him to France, where Hannibal will live with his uncle and his uncle’s beautiful and exotic wife, Lady Murasaki.

Lady Murasaki helps Hannibal to heal. With her help he flourishes, becoming the youngest person ever admitted to medical school in France.

But Hannibal’s demons visit him and torment him. When he is old enough, he visits them in turn.

He discovers he has gifts beyond the academic, and in that epiphany, Hannibal Lecter becomes death’s prodigy.“There are images of morbid beauty here.... Harris' handling of the wartime violence is also impressive, as swift and vicious as the blitzkrieg itself.”—Los Angeles Times
“Gripping detail.... [Harris] moves the story along at an impressively fast clip.”—Boston GlobeThomas Harris began his writing career covering crime in the United States and Mexico, and was a reporter and editor for the Associated Press in New York City. His first novel,Black Sunday, was published in 1975, followed byRed Dragonin 1981,The Silence of the Lambsin 1988, andHannibalin 1999.Prologue

The door to Dr. Hannibal Lecter's memory palace is in the darkness at the center of his mind and it has a latch that can be found by touch alone. This curious portal opens on immense and well-lit spaces, early baroque, and corridors and chambers rivaling in number those of the Topkapi Museum.

Everywhere there are exhibits, well-spaced and lighted, each keyed to memories that lead to other memories ilc&