Thomas Harris, Hannibal Rising

Hannibal Rising

Thomas Harris

Delacorte, December 2006, $27.95

ISBN: 0385339410

His father was Count Lector, and with his wife and their children, lived in the family castle in Lithuania; their idyllic life ended when Hitler's troops swept through the land. Hannibal's family moved into their hunting lodge, while Quislings served the Nazis who took over the castle and the estate while looting the treasures. For five years the Lector family barely survived on whatever they could hunt, fish, or scrounge. In 1945, Hannibal watched his parents die in a bombing raid.

Hannibal and his beloved sister Mischa, who adored her older brother, camped at the lodge. When she is also killed in a horrific way, he blocked it from his mind and became mute. He eventually returned to his family castle, which had become a state run orphanage, until his uncle takes him to France. There Hannibal and his uncle's wife Lady Muraski connect on a primal level. When a Vichy shopkeeper insults his "aunt", Hannibal kills him as he begins to remember what happened to Mischa and how he will avenge her death.

Hannibal's brilliance is demonstrated at an early age, and it is that coupled with the personal horrors of war that torment him and turn him into the FBI number one most wanted. While hating the man he becomes, readers will as always be fascinated in a macabre way with him, as he deals with one constant trauma after another. However, in spite of the allure that Lecter possesses in this prequel, HANNIBAL RISING is not quite at the level of excellence Thomas Harris has achieved with this character's books, mainly because the support cast, key in the other tales, seem one dimensional; mostly evil, with none behaving remotely heroic. Still, fans of RED DRAGON and THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS will enjoy learning how mankind created the monster.