Book Review: Hannibal

Book: Hannibal (Hannibal Lecter book #3) by Thomas Harris

Rating: 1 star

Review:

Hannibal was a huge disappointment, especially the ending. This was not a fitting conclusion to FBI Special Agent Clarice Starling's story. Clarice's career had been going through a downward spiral after she had taken down serial killer Jame Gumb. Most of it was due to a grudge by some of her superiors which includes Paul Krendler and the other reason is because she doesn't play office politics.

But things became even worse after a bust went bad and the FBI turned Clarice into a scapegoat and doing their best to push her out of the organization. That is until Dr. Hannibal Lecter resurfaces after years of being in the wind, he had mailed Clarice a letter.

This reappearance was just what the embittered and severely scarred psycho Mason Verger had been hoping for. He had been obsessed with seeking his revenge against Lecter and had set in place a plan to capture the Dr. who was in Italy. However,  it didn't go as plan when the Dr. escaped leaving several bodies in his wake.  

Verger improvised his plan and decided to work with Krendler to use Clarice as bait so they can lure Lecter in to be captured.

I will stop right there as not to spoil the book for any who would like to read it.

This was very disappointing to read because it wasted so much time focusing on things that meant absolutely nothing to the story which slowed it down immensely and added no value to the story. Including focusing on mundane things to useless characters. I thought most of the entire second part of the story that takes place in Florence, Italy should have been cut out or at least edited down to include only the pertinent information.

Hannibal is one of those books where you're left shaking your head wondering what the author had been thinking when this book was being written. There's nothing thrilling about this and it was poorly written. All I can say is this was awful with only just a few moments that were actually interesting. This review would be too long if I wrote down all the things that ruined this story.

I think Hannibal Lecter works best as a minor character. He's best in the shadows as the mysterious boogey man. Giving him too much attention takes away from his enigma and he certainly didn't need that lackluster backstory that was written for him. Clarice Starling became nothing more than a plot device instead of being an interesting character. She had no personality, she was just a bland character that gave the reader nothing to care about. What happened to these characters and more importantly what happened to this story?

This was just a waste of time.