Rating: 
Summary: Hannibal: A Complex Book With a Puzzling Aftertaste
Review: The newest addition to Harris' series is well-crafted, nicely paced and a good read --especially if you know what to expect from a Hannibal the Cannibal tale. The narrative is filled with imagery of exquisite sensory experiences in art, food (no not THAT) and fine wine interspersed with cavalier descriptions of horrific brutalities. The horror is served up on a platter of cultivated sensitivity and fear. It's great stuff but the ending is truly mystifying. I'm left with more questions than answers.....do you smell a sequil in the air? MEK
Rating: 
Summary: I expected more after 11 years
Review: After the masterpiece that was Silence of the Lambs, I was going nuts waiting for Morbidity of the Soul/Hannibal to come out. Needless to say, I got it the day it came out and finished it within the week.The book is VERY good, but pales in comparison to SOTL and makes you wonder what took so long for this book to get written. Harris tells a very interesting story that lacks the verbal duels b/t Starling and Lechter in SOTL and the last 40 or so pages are a letdown in my opion (others I've talked with loved the ending). If you are a fan of Red Dragon and SOTL, you have to read this book and it's well worth your time. If you haven't read them....read them first then tackle this book.
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Summary: Did Thomas Harris really write this book?!!
Review: I finished "Hannibal" early this morning. It left me feeling like I'd been CHEATED! This book is a completely inadequate addition to the sometimes brilliant always extremely engrossing books Mr. Harris has written to date. It leaves me with the feeling that it was ghost-written at the behest of some publishing executive who was solely interested in book sales and movie rights. Now for my reasons. In "The Red Dragon", Mr. Harris created a serial killer so rich in detail I was brought to tears when it was explained how this person became a monster. We are also introduced to Jack Crawford, Will Graham and the great Hannibal Lector. Mr. Harris continued his tour de force with "Silence of the Lambs" where we are introduced to Clarice Starling and Paul Krendler while the brilliant and courageous Will Graham is dismissed as being an alcoholic with a scarred face living in seclusion in Florida. Now to Hannibal. This time Crawford is the great character dumped on the scrap pile. After the brilliant start in her career, Harris expects us to believe that Krendler has cleverly orchestrated Clarice's career so that she's relegated minor assignments. On the other hand Krendler is so obviously a jerk, you'd think anyone with the brains of an amoeba could see what he's up to. All the "career-threatening" trouble Clarice has with the FBI could have handled easily by a second-year law student. The explanations of Hannibal's behavior are weak and unconvincing. Harris would have done a lot better to leave them out. Harris also expects us to believe that one of the most infamous criminals in history can hide while living in high-style. (Josef Mengele couldn't pull that off.) Of course Clarice finds him with ridiculous ease. I could go on here, but I'll finish now. "Hannibal" is little more than your basic off-the-shelf thriller. The kind of book you read on a flight ot Tokyo and leave on the seat for the next passenger. It is not worthy of Thomas Harris,not worth the seven year wait and definitely not worth the price. Wait for the paperback version you'll find at your local laundromat.
Rating:
Summary: Suspense almost as sharp as the infamous insicors.
Review: A trip through the vast chambers of Lecters mind. You can feel his breath on your neck, his elegance and manners in every encounter. "Hannibal" lets us see the side to Lecter we dare to discover. Human suffering and emotions. Excellent read, intelligent writing, simply mesmerizing.
Rating: 
Summary: The best Sequel to a book you will ever read
Review: After reading Silence of the Lambs I often thought what would happen in the next one. Rumours surrounded the book for years and finally it is out. It has outlived all expectations and the twists and turns at the end are unpredictable. It's a must read for all Horror fans.
Rating: 
Summary: a very disappointing novel
Review: After reading Red Dragon and Silence of the Lambs I was really looking forward to the sequel. This book is a waste. A plodding plot, gore galore and a finish that is "bloody unlikely". Major surgery will be required to transform this sludge to the big screen. Bring back Will. (I would give this a "dog" if available as a voting option.)
Rating:
Summary: This book was a huge disappointment.
Review: You have got to be kidding me. A decade of waiting for this. Hannibal being on the next MIR mission would have been a more believable ending than what we got. I wish I knew Thomas Harris's address so I could mail the book back to him for a refund.
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant and wicked
Review: The book is brilliant and wicked. I do not understand the objections being raised. exactly what do people expect when they buy a book about a mad cannibal? The Hardy Boys? We now know that the good doctor is a modern vampire and he has made poor Claire his companion forever -- and we do not know that she is unhappy. Harris (if indeed he wrote the book) is a wicked, perhaps evil man. Remember the scene in the torture exhibit in Florence, when the good doctor enjoyed looking not at the instruments of torture but at the flushed faces of the audience? Does it occur to anyone that we, the readers, are those sick, drooling fools? I am surprised by all those who are denouncing the book. Let us recall that Thomas Harris has not been seen in some years. Is it possible that the good doctor has, shall we say, disposed of him, and written here his own autobiography? If so, I would not be criticizing the book, because the doctor is easily offended by bad taste, and he might come calling. ###
Rating:
Summary: Needs to be sent back to the kitchen
Review: After a fast paced, cinematic opening the book slows to a crawl and barely creeps. Harris exchanges plot for a romp through the grotesque that freezes the action rather than pushes it onward. I started the novel delighted to be meeting old friends but finished it feeling my time had been wasted, as had the characters. Enough has already been said about the ending. If this scrambled narrative moves to the movies it will need some serious rewrites with an eye to widening the lense beyond the freakish. Its now a modern Dracula story that left this reader feeling drained, not by the horror but by the effort to maintain hope that the writing would ultimately redeem the storyline. No such luck. If this was a meal I'd send it back to the kitchen.
Rating:
Summary: A classic gone awry
Review: This is as bad as it gets. This follow-up to the classic, superbly written "Red Dragon" and the brilliant "The Silence of the Lambs" falls unbelievably and painfully flat. This book is regrettably almost excrutiating to read for anyone other than the most ardent Harris fan. An extraordinarily plodding and boring narrative and one of the most implausible and lurid plots that I have ever had the misfortune of reading. I cast my copy of this God-awful book to the swines. I don't even think that swine that haven't been fed for three days would read this drivel. Do yourself a favor and save your money; don't buy this book. Re-read "Red Dragon" and once again remember what an extraordinarily beguiling and engrossing experience reading can be.
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