Red Dragon

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When in the winter of 1979, I entered the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane, and the great metal door crashed closed behind me, little did I know what waited at the end of the corridor, how seldom we recognize the sound when the bolt of our fate slides home.

This is how the foreword ends... pretty chilling. I had high hopes for the story after this. It seems like Thomas Harris becomes his characters. Therefore, it's gonna be gruesome and thrilling/horrific, right? Especially being a huge fan girl of the new Hannibal T.V. series, I was excited to get creeped out.

NOT RIGHT... Red Dragon turned out to be more of a character study, to me. It was not nearly as gruesome and detailed as the synopsis leads you to believe. There were a couple parts where things got exciting, but that's about it. Will Graham is not even a very developed character in the book and Hannibal Lecter doesn't make much of an appearance.

The focus of the story is after Will has caught Dr. Lecter and is now trying to catch a guy who calls himself the “Red Dragon”. The Red Dragon's mind is a crazy place the couple of times you get to see into it, I would have liked for the book to concentrate more on that aspect. Other than that it was just this happened then this happened then this happened. The plot is well developed but there was not much character development in any area. That's what bugged me.

Overall, this is a good story. But slightly annoying to read because most situations just don't get fleshed out as much as you would like. I would chalk it up to Thomas Harris being an author who has great story ideas but is not as great a writer as you might think.

I think I'll just keep watching the T.V. show with all their dapper suits.