“Some days you wake up changed. This was one for Starling, she could tell. What she had seen yesterday at the Potter Funeral Home had caused in her a small tectonic shift.”

-Thomas Harris

Ever get mad at an author/artist/performer for being just always SO good? That’s how I felt when I read this. Just as good as the movie, even when you know what’s going to happen.

First of all, if you haven’t seen the movie (which the author himself called “wonderful”), go watch it.

Back? Great.

I promise you, the book is equally as good. Harris writes Clarice Starling with such dynamism and empathy. She’s a hero, but she’s not flashy. She knows she just as good as her male colleagues, but she also knows that it’s the 1980s and she has to prove it. I consider her one of the best protagonists in fiction. (The American Film Institute also ranks her as one of the top 10 film heroes of all time.)

Clarice (and Lecter) and set against a backdrop of very real characters, locations, and reactions. You feel for the victim’s families, you think that somehow they’ll solve the case in time…although some of that is already a forgone conclusion. Some parts of the book are disturbing, but in a way that’s very intentional and not at all approaching torture porn or gross-for-the-sake-of-gross. I highly recommend all fans of horror, crime, or hell, literature itself to give it a read.

(The prequel, Red Dragon, is also good, and will be familiar to anyone who’s seen the (excellent) NBC adaptation of the series. The sequel, Hannibal, is of a similar quality, but takes Clarice’s character in a direction that might be polarizing to some.)