Unlike the previous books in Thomas Harris' Hannibal Lecter series, HANNIBAL serves up a personal history of the genius/psychopath/antihero that sheds light on his madness. Set seven years after THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS, this next course features a more appetizing Hannibal living a quiet life of luxury in Florence, a down-on-her-luck Clarise Starling demoted to the Behavioral Sciences department of the Bureau after a failed drug bust, and a horrifically disfigured Hannibal the Cannibal survivor bent on vengeance. An Entertainment Weekly Worst Book of 1999 and a 1999 New York Times Notable Book, HANNIBAL appeared on the Publishers Weekly best-seller list for 21 weeks.