'There's your run-of-the-mill crime novels, and then there's The Silence of the Lambs'
Contains explicit themes. For readers aged 14+
Plotlines surrounding the FBI and its special crime investigation units have become one of the most dry, dull and horribly overdone novel themes. The rush that once came with reading about the advanced technology that American law enforcement agencies used, and the classic confrontation between the villain and the protagonist while an armed and dangerous SWAT team wait nearby, has faded. The Silence of the Lambs stands alone in being, I personally believe, the only FBI-centred novel worth reading.
Clarice Starling, still doing her years at the training academy and a part of the Bureau's behavioural sciences unit, is called upon to participate in one of the goriest, strangest cases the Bureau has ever seen. She is sent to talk to Hannibal Lecter, an ex-psychologist who is currently residing in a high security mental asylum.
Lecter, having been sentenced to a whole life in an asylum due to his cannibalistic tendencies, establishes an odd sort of relationship with Starling. They work together, to track the movements and the thoughts of a fast-moving psychopath.
A strange partnership emerges as secrets from Starling's past are revealed. It isn't the fact that there's a man capable of murder on the loose that scares her, it's the man who's safe behind bars that does.
There's your run-of-the-mill crime novels, and then there's The Silence of the Lambs. Reading the former would be a great way to pass the time of day and learn the elaborate terms used in criminology. The latter will haunt you till the very end and raise your perceptions of a good mystery novel.
Harris' eye for detail is incredible. He is gifted with the rare ability to inject a haunting sense of nonchalance into the oddest of scenarios. The questions that are left running through the reader's mind at the end of novel are almost painful.
This is possibly one of the only novels I've read, where the chain of events and level of description almost rivals the characters themselves (Hannibal Lecter excepted).
There are two brilliantly villainous characters in this book. The rather obvious one being the murderer who the FBI pursues throughout the novel. The rather less obvious one being the genius locked up in the asylum, who helps in solving the case and has thoughts, sinister beyond imagining, running through his head.
Want to tell the world about a book you've read? Join the site and send us your review!
0 comments:
Post a Comment