Seven years on from her encounters with Dr Hannibal Lecter, FBI Special Agent Clarice Starling is having bad karma. Not alone is she being accused of the illegal killing of a woman terrorist, but intimations of the cannibalistic Lecter's whereabouts are beginning to filter through to her from shadowy dreamscapes. Meanwhile, in Florence, a certain Dr Fell is in the process of being appointed as curator of one of the city's foremost museums. A scholar of incredible talent, he also instils a tremor of cold fear in those around him. And in Virginia, one Mason Verger, kept alive on a respirator after having his face chewed off by you-know-who, is using his fabulous wealth to track down and destroy that same you-know-who. What more can one say about Harris's follow-up to The Silence of the Lambs except that it is just as grisly, just as horror-inducing and just as fascinating as its forerunner? As an examination of the side of human life that lies too deep for tears, it cannot be bettered. Read it and weep.