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Methodical and so intriguing. A few years back one of my favourite authors reviewed a book by Thomas Harris. I made a comment on his review and he mentioned that Harris wrote some classics. I never knew who he was and sadly it has taken way too long to get to one of his.

So I have to admit that Hannibal Lecter is one of my favourite characters. Again because I have watched so many of the movies that are based on Harris' book I could easily see him when he is referenced. Admittedly and perhaps sadly I had never watched the movie based on this book Red Dragon.

The start of this book was just awesome. Every time I had 15/20 minutes to kill I found myself going to it. I have never done this with a book before. I was consumed by it. Yet I learned a very valueable lesson and next year when US Thanksgiving is around the corner I will not be into reading a book as there is just too much damn football on and sadly the football was able to shake my conviction with reading this book and I went basically 4 days without reading it.

That stoppage coincided with a break in the book as well. At the start we see that the Red Dragon, the infamous serial killer has wiped out two families and had started with the death of their family pets. The pet killings are not that detailed but they do exist very briefly.

So the FBI approach retired profiler extraordinaire Will Graham to assist with the case and overcoming his wife's objections he takes on the case. The profiling and the way Graham does it are described in awesome detail. It's like he sees things that no one else can and it is just so buyable because basically such profilers do exist. Yet this case is rare and difficult and Graham knows it. So he has a thought to get the assistance of Hannibal Lecter who almost destroyed him before Graham was able to put him away. So the story of Graham and Lecter is so cool and a great backdrop of course. My edition had a few pages from Harris describing how he came up with the character of Lecter and what went behind it. It was awesome to learn.

So the first part of the book had me consumed with all this. The killings, the hunt fot the killer. The intro to Lecter and how he planned to backstab Graham by getting in touch with the new serial killer once the new serial killer finds out that Graham is trying to use Lecter to nail him. A newspaper reporter got the scoop on that part of the story (Graham using Lecter) and then prints it and that's how the serial killer decides to contact Lecter.

So at this point the story is totally centred on a cat and mouse like game and that's when the football break came. When I got back to reading this after the football break things really changed and at first I was really upset about it all.

Harris moves us away from the thrill of the chase and we get a good hard look at what made our serial killer the nut job that he is. At first I am like boo hoo, cry me a river. There are so many people that have gone through so much (myself included) and don't turn into serial killers. Of course based on the reality of it all it clearly happens, serial killers clearly and sadly exist. Harris also introduces a love interest Reba Mclane. She is blind but the dragon falls in love. We then clearly see that the dragon and the serial killer Francis Dolarhyde are in fact a split personality and a part of each other. The dragon wants to kill Reba and Dolarhyde does not want to. The interplay and the conflict Harris brings out is so real and so in depth. It was just great to read it all.

As the dragon's background and his new love interest play on each other the investigation into the killings by Graham take a back seat. This is where I got somewhat disapponted. I am sure if I had just kept reading in stride things would have been easier and in the end I came to really enjoy the turn the book took. So real frustrating at first and then as I read more and more it really fascinated me.

In the end things come together very nicely including a message from our old friend Hannibal Lecter. It was just a great experience to read this classic and I cannot wait to sink my teeth into the follow up The Silence of the Lambs which as a movie scares the s**t out of me, lol.

An easy five stars though this novel really changes gears but in a oh so good way 😎