The Silence of the Lambs, by Thomas Harris, is even better than the successful movie. Like his earlier Red Dragon, the book takes us inside the world of professional criminal investigation. All the elements of a well-executed thriller are working here--driving suspense, compelling characters, inside information, publicity-hungry bureaucrats thwarting the search, and the clock ticking relentlessly down toward the death of another young woman. What enriches this well-told tale is the opportunity to live inside the minds of both the crime fighters and the criminals as each struggles in a prison of pain and seeks, sometimes violently, relief.

Clarice Starling, a precociously self-disciplined FBI trainee, is dispatched by her boss, Section Chief Jack Crawford, the FBI's most successful tracker of serial killers, to see whether she can learn anything useful from Dr. Hannibal Lecter. Lecter's a gifted psychopath whose nickname is "The Cannibal" because he likes to eat parts of his victims. Isolated by his crimes from all physical contact with the human race, he plays an enigmatic game of "Clue" with Starling, providing her with snippets of data that, if she is smart enough, will lead her to the criminal. Undaunted, she goes where the data takes her. As the tension mounts and the bureaucracy thwarts Starling at every turn, Crawford tells her, "Keep the information and freeze the feelings." Insulted, betrayed, and humiliated, Starling struggles to focus. If she can understand Lecter's final, ambiguous scrawl, she can find the killer. But can she figure it out in time? --Barbara Schlieper

2008-04-09 Very well written and thoroughly enjoyable

I had unfortunately seen the film before I read this book and I was angry with myself as I did imagine the characters as Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins. But aside from that, I really enjoyed this book. I knew the storyline but the book goes into so much more detail. I found myself being surprised that the film did not contain some of the detail of the book. Thomas Harris is so easy to read and I read the book very quickly. The scenes with Buffalo Bill are so disturbing; you can imagine the situations all too easily. The conversations between Clarice and Hannibal were fantastic and I could feel the emotion in the words. Very well written and thoroughly enjoyable. I'm now reading Hannibal.