One of my goals in 2020 is to read more. See other books I've read or listened to here.
I loved the show Hannibal and wanted to read the source material, starting with the first book Red Dragon by Thomas Harris.
Will Graham has left his time with the FBI behind him. He has a wife, he has a family, he has tried to forget the traumatic events of capturing Hannibal lector and the scars it has left on his mind and body. But when his old pal and boss. Jack Crawford comes for a visit, Will Graham knows his FBI days were never truly over.
I read this book in about 4 days. It’s a quick read compared to many of the books I had read around the same time. It is a heavy book in that there is a lot of violence and some gore. I have seen the show Hannibal, which primarily takes place before this book. I have never seen the two movies based on this book, Manhunter and Red Dragon. Since I wasn’t sure when the events of Hannibal related to this book going in, I was surprised where it picked up. I do not usually go into any book with such preconceived notions. That both made it easy and hard to read this book, I think. Once I got my bearings and realized that season three of the show was based on this book, I was surprised at how faithful to the source material it was. I had watched that season only a few weeks before and could remember exact lines that had come directly from the book. It was interesting to see where changes were made and what charters were changed. The characters were not as likable as they had seemed in the show, but I still wondered about them and wanted to find out what happened to them. This book gave me “books advertised on the subway” vibes. Like, maybe not the most brilliant book, but one that would be quick and easy to read. Overall I liked this book and look forward to reading the sequel, Silence of the Lambs. I would NOT recommend this book for those that don’t like horror, or books about killers or books where the violence could exist ion the real world. I would recommend this book for people interested in the source material of the show or movies, those who like easy to read psychological thrillers, or books about serial killers or forensic/FBI agents. I also have a love for authors who write several books, and when they want to stop are forced to write more by their publishers. That’s probably pretty rare, but it makes me want to read all the books and see what effect that has on the series.
Have you read this book? What are you thoughts? Do you have recommendations for other books that famous movies were based on?