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St. Martin's Griffin

The Silence of the Lambs (Hannibal Lecter)

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The twenty-fifth anniversary edition of the 1 New York Times bestselling classic, now with a note by author Thomas Harris revealing his inspiration for Hannibal Lecter. An ingenious, masterfully written novel, The Silence of the Lambs is a classic of suspense and storytelling and the basis for the Oscar award-winning horror film starring Jodie Foster as Clarice Starling and Anthony Hopkins as Dr. Hannibal Lecter. A serial murderer known only by a grotesquely apt nickname―Buffalo Bill―is stalking particular women. He has a purpose, but no one can fathom it, for the bodies are discovered in different states. Clarice Starling, a young trainee at the F.B.I. Academy, is surprised to be summoned by Jack Crawford, Chief of the Bureau's Behavioral Science section. Her assignment: to interview Dr. Hannibal Lecter, a brilliant psychiatrist and grisly killer now kept under close watch in the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane. Lecter's insight into the minds of murderers could help track and capture Buffalo Bill. Smart and attractive, Starling is shaken to find herself in a strange, intense relationship with the acutely perceptive Lecter. His cryptic clues―about Buffalo Bill and about her―launch Clarice on a search that every reader will find startling, harrowing, and totally compelling. Read more


Publisher ‏ : ‎ St. Martin's Griffin; New edition, 25th Anniversary (October 1, 2013)


Language ‏ : ‎ English


Paperback ‏ : ‎ 368 pages


ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1250048095


ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 97


Lexile measure ‏ : ‎ 770L


Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 11.8 ounces


Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.65 x 1 x 8.2 inches


Best Sellers Rank: #170,358 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #7,026 in Literary Fiction (Books) #8,057 in Suspense Thrillers #8,612 in American Literature (Books)


#7,026 in Literary Fiction (Books):


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Top Amazon Reviews

    • Entertaining Thriller
The Silence of the Lambs / 0099446782 On the grounds that everyone else on earth has seen the movie, I rented Silence of the Lambs over the weekend and found it surprisingly better than I'd expected: as far as classic films go, the movie held up well, and I was pleased to find how much of the movie explores institutional misogyny in the FBI and how Clarice Starling is forced to navigate a lot of hurdles that her male colleagues don't. Indeed, the movie piqued my interest enough that I bought the kindle book and audible audiobook and read along with the narrator to see if this theme was explored in more depth in the novel. Twenty-four hours later, I'm still not sure how to rate this book. I found it entertaining to read/listen to. The novel is well-written from a purely technical perspective, though the occasional jumps to present tense when talking about people from Starling's past were sometimes disconcerting for me, since I'm less used to that style of writing. (Example: "Jimmy Price *is* a supervisor in Latent Prints at the Washington lab. Starling *did* time with him as a Forensic Fellow." [emphasis mine]) In some ways, the novel reminds me of the parts I liked in Steig Larsson's Millennium Trilogy , and the way the author could use otherwise "mundane" details to make the story feel vivid and immediate. Also like Steig Larsson's trilogy, I feel like this book is trying to be an ally to women, and seeks to make some good feminist points...but I'm not sure how well it succeeds. I like protagonist Clarice Starling and I love her roommate Ardelia Mapp, and their conversations are some of the best in the novel. There's a lot of institutionalized misogyny that Clarice is forced to navigate around, just like in the movie, and quite a bit of this is handled reasonably well. There's a good conversation with Hannibal Lector about how society mistakes rage for lust, which I thought was a good dismantling of a lot of false "rape is a compliment" narratives. And I deeply appreciate the point made later in the novel when Clarice notes the incongruity in a case where all the victims are women, and yet NONE of the investigators are. That is a very crucial point that needs to be hammered home, and Harris does a good job of it. On the other hand, the level of issues in this novel for female bodies that happen to be fat just about took my breath away, and it can't all be laid at the doorstep of the misogynistic serial killer. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry when Starling came to the conclusion that the serial killer would have been *forced* to stalk his victims (as opposed to kidnapping them opportunistically) because tall, fat women "aren't common" and that if he'd just staked out a location waiting for one to walk by then he "could sit for days and not see one." Because us tall, fat women are like invisible pink unicorns! And our invisibility is an objective fact and not a matter of people only noticing the people they subjectively prefer to focus on. Additionally, the author can't seem to decide what level of "sisterhood" he wants to push as part of the narrative. It's a very good point that a case with all-women victims deserves to have women investigators on the team. And Starling may well be correct when she claims that she "can walk in a woman's room and know three times as much about her as a man would know", although I would say that statement is an over-generalization that very much depends on both the woman who owns the room and the hypothetical man looking at it. At the same time, Starling has moments where she has to push through her own rage and distaste and misplaced pity: anger at women who were born into more money than she; distaste for women with fat bodies who are axiomatically "hard on [their] shoes" which are "strained into ovals"; pity on fat women who are willing to date men who aren't turned off by fat bodies. I think Harris intends these details to make Starling realistically flawed, yet even after she works through her issues, she still feels judgmental of other women, trapped in the Exceptional Woman stereotype that helps her navigate institutionalized sexism but doesn't tear it down. The overall effect muddles the intended feminist message I feel the author is trying to deliver. I've noted elsewhere that the movie is a mess when it comes to trans* issues, and the book tries to do better. There's much firmer establishment here of the fact that the serial killer is not a trans woman and that most trans* people are not violent -- indeed, that violence is much more common among cis people. But there's still the problematic framing that trans* people are "passive", which is a blanket characterization which others trans* people into a monolith with a word which is almost never used in a positive manner. ("Passive" is rarely a compliment, in my experience.) Additionally, the assessment of why the killer is not really trans* largely boils down to "because he gave the wrong answers on the psychiatric assessments", and some of these passages in the novel end up sounding reductionist, like there's only one "right" way to be a trans* person. As with the women's issues, it feels like the narrative was TRYING to be sensitive, but missed the boat. I want to be clear, because sometimes my reviews are misunderstood: I enjoyed this novel. I'm giving it 4-stars. I'm pleased that I bought and listened to/read it. I might read it again someday. If you don't mind the above issues and/or can turn off the parts of your brain that are bothered by them for however long it takes to read a classic thriller novel, I recommend this book as enjoyable. But at the same time, this isn't a flawless novel of perfection, and I was a little disappointed to see an author try so hard to be an ally and miss the mark in places. Though I'm glad he tried at all, I hope that future writers who are inspired by this classic will improve on these flaws. A note on the audiobook for this novel: I purchased the unabridged recording narrated by Frank Muller through Audible. Muller does a good job on the narration, but there's a persistent white noise hum in the background that I managed to tune out *except* when there was complete silence between chapters, at which point I noticed the soft white noise hum all over again when it started up in the next chapter -- each new chapter, I had to re-acclimate to the underlying sound, which took several sentences to get used to. There's also a weird artifact on the track at the moment: at some points in the narration, there's "ghosting" on the track, as though there were two identical recordings of Muller's voice (a left and a right for stereo, maybe?) and one track suddenly falls a half-second behind the other, so it sounds like he's repeating himself for a moment until the voices re-sync. You can hear this at half a dozen points in the audio, including at Chapter 15 at time 3.08.49. I've reported this content error to Audible and they've been able to reproduce the error on their end, but they haven't yet fixed it as of 6/2/2013. ~ Ana Mardoll ... show more
Reviewed in the United States on June 2, 2013 by Ana Mardoll
    • 100x Better Than The Movie (of course)!
The book is well written, suspenseful, and just...gross (descriptions of Hannibal Lecter and other serial killers). I watched the movie right after having finished this book (I'd watched it when it first came out in the 90s), and I was soooooo disappointed in the movie.
Reviewed in the United States on September 28, 2023 by S. M.
    • Came in great condition!
This is a great product! The book looks brand new - it's in near perfect condition. I've been wanting this book for a while, and I highly recommend this seller :)
Reviewed in the United States on September 27, 2023 by Seldyn S
    • im hooked.. again
Thought I was hooked after red dragon now I’m even more enthralled with the series. I love the deferent perspectives and how the story lines fall together
Reviewed in the United States on September 16, 2023 by Karin Kleps
    • Excellent book - as expected
Mr. Harris seems to have intimate technical knowledge of several fields, which makes his writing all the more interesting. Having read the book long after seeing the movie (more than a few times) it’s fun to get the author’s original story to see what the film industry has done to it. Sure, a few characters are noticeably missing, and a few details switched around to make this gig into a two hour movie that the audience can follow. Still, lovers of the movie will definitely find their hunger for the printed word to be well fed. I don’t read a lot of fiction, but this book was definitely worth the time and effort. ... show more
Reviewed in the United States on July 28, 2023 by Valiant S. Vetter
    • From a Great Novel to an Equally Great Screenplay to a Brilliant Film!
Whether you look at the novel written by Thomas Harris in 1988, the working screenplay and storybook by Ted Tally from 1990, the resulting movie directed by Jonathan Demme in 1991, or the magical performances of its lead actors, all of those pieces come together to make “Silence of the Lambs,” the movie, an American classic. While most of fans simply enjoy watching it, it is interesting to see where the genius came from. Very few novels ever make good screenplays, and I feel the better the book the harder it is. A novel is largely about what people think, while a movie is about what they do. Reading thru this novel and screenplay, 95% of the screenplay comes from the novel, to Harris’ credit; but Talley left large chunks of the novel out of the screenplay and Demme left chunks of the screenplay on the cutting room floor, because a gesture or a quick camera shot can convey many pages of text. The trick, is to show all that thinking and back story through action, motion, gestures, and inflection. I have adapted three of my own suspense novels into screenplays, keeping it tight is easier said than done. In this case, a 352 page hardback novel was adapted into a 120 page screenplay, and an even tighter, superbly edited movie of only 118 minutes. The screenplay and movie stay very true to the plot and characters which Harris wrote. However, both Tally and Deme made a number of small, but very magical additions. The best is the final scene at a small Caribbean airport where Lecter watches his nemesis, Dr. Chilton arrive, while Lecter is on the phone congratulating Clarice Starling for graduating from the FBI Academy. As Lecter hangs up and begins following Chilton up the street, we all know what he plans to have for dinner. The novel ends with Lecter writing Starling a congratulatory note which tells her he will not come after her, because the world is a better place with her in it. Tally’s screenplay has the airport scene with Chilton and Lecter saying these things to Starling over the phone, but the scene is at night. When Demme films it, he has the scene in broad daylight so we can see the nervous panic on Chilton and the glint of coming revenge in Lecter’s eyes. That stroke of brilliance gives the movie viewer one more chill up his spine before the final credits. When you read the working screenplay while watching the movie, you can see many, many more examples where Tally tightened and added to the novel, and where Demme made further cuts and added some wonderful touches. You can see some of them in the story boards where Demme sketched the feel he was looking for in various scenes. While praising Harris, Tally, and Demme for their genius, it is impossible to ignore what Jodie Foster, Anthony Hopkins, Scott Glenn, and Ted Levine brought to their characters. In his introductory scene, Hopkins is able to scare the hell out of us by just standing still and looking out through the bars of his cell, absolutely deadpan, while Foster uses accent, mannerisms, and phrasing to create a memorable character of a backwoods country girl. One could cite dozens of other examples in the writing, directing, and acting; but in the end, what makes it one of the very best ever made is that all of those pieces came together in 118 minutes of film. I would also cite “Day Of the Jackal,” in 1971, “The Eagle Has Landed,” in 1975, and “Eye of the Needle,” in 1978 as excellent adaptations of very good suspense novels. The films have stood the test of time without a single ‘blue screen,’ computer-generated special effect, or other gimmick. Imagine that! ... show more
Reviewed in the United States on June 24, 2014 by Kindle Unlimited Reader
    • A Classic
A cannibalistic madman with a superior intelligence aids a young female FBI cadet in tracking down a murderer of young girls. A classic study of how the mind works within each character.
Reviewed in the United States on July 30, 2023 by Anne Pantano

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