Thomas Harris

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. 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. An ingenious, masterfully written novel, The Silence of the Lambs is a classic of suspense and storytelling.

The Silence of the Lambs

Jonnie

"Time, Pilch!" A man's voice, shrill with excitement. "Let's go here. Time!" 

Starling stopped in the doorway. Two men sat at a laboratory table playing chess. Both were about thirty, one black-haired and lean, the other pudgy with wiry red hair. They appeared to be engrossed in the chessboard. If they noticed Starling, they gave no sign. If they noticed the enormous rhinoceros beetle slowly making its way across the board, weaving among the chessmen, they gave no sign of that either. Then the beetle crossef the edge of the board.

"Time, Roden," the lean one said instantly. 

The pudgy one moved his bishop and immediately turned the beetle around and started it trudging back the other way. 

"If the beetle just cuts across the corner, is time up then?" Starling asked. 

"Of course time's up then," the pudgy one said loudly, without looking up. "Of course it's up then. How do you play? Do you make him cross the whole board? Who do you play against, a sloth?"

The Silence of the Lambs quotes

Join the club