QuinnEee

Seven years after rescuing Jame Gumb's last victim, Clarice Starling witnesses her career crumble around her. A drug raid goes wrong and Starling kills an armed meth dealer in self-defense: the dealer was carrying her own baby while shooting at Starling. Hannibal Lecter, who has been living in Florence, Italy, under an assumed name since escaping custody, sends her a letter of condolence and requests more information about her personal life. Desperate to catch Lecter, the FBI finds a use for Starling once again. She meets with Barney Matthews, former orderly of Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane. He tells her what Lecter said about her and that he said he would never go after her if he escaped.

Meanwhile, Mason Verger, a wealthy, sadistic pedophile who was left horribly disfigured after a "therapy session" with Lecter, plans to get revenge by feeding Lecter to wild boars, using Starling as bait. He is aided by corrupt Justice Department agent Paul Krendler, Starling's nemesis.

A disgraced Florentine detective, Rinaldo Pazzi, also pursues Lecter in the interests of collecting Verger's bounty on him. However, Lecter kills one of Pazzi's men and hangs Pazzi where his ancestor, Francesco de Pazzi, was hanged in 1478. Lecter waves at a camera, the footage of which is later seen by Verger. Lecter kills one of Verger's men and escapes to the United States, where he begins pursuing Starling.

The novel briefly touches upon Lecter's childhood, specifically the death of his beloved younger sister, Mischa. The two were orphaned during World War II, and a group of German deserters found them on their family estate and took them prisoner. The Germans, after checking the limbs of both siblings, had taken Mischa away. Lecter later found some of Mischa's milk teeth in a stool pit used by the deserters, indicating to young Hannibal that they had killed and eaten his sister.

Barney briefly works for Verger, and gets acquainted with Verger's sister and bodyguard Margot, a lesbian bodybuilder whom Verger molested and raped as a child. Their friendship is briefly strained when he makes a pass at her, but they eventually reconcile, and Margot tells him that she stays in her hated brother's employment because she needs Mason's sperm to have a child with her partner, Judy.

Lecter is captured by Verger's men, and Starling pursues them, determined to bring Lecter in herself. One of Verger's men shoots her full of tranquilizer as she releases Lecter. The wild boars break through the barricade separating them from Lecter, but they lose interest in their intended prey when they smell no fear on him, instead going after Verger's men. In the confusion, Lecter carries the unconscious Starling to safety, and escapes with her. At the same time, Margot forcibly obtains Mason's sperm by sodomizing him with a cattle prod, and then kills him by shoving his pet Moray eel down his throat. Lecter, who had briefly treated Margot after her brother abused her, has urged her to blame the murder on him, which she does by leaving one of his hairs at the scene.

Using a regimen of psychotropic drugs and behavioral therapy, Lecter attempts to brainwash Starling, hoping to make her believe she is Mischa, returned to life. She ultimately proves too strong, however, and tells him that Mischa will have to live on within him. Lecter captures Krendler and lobotomizes him, and then he and Starling dine on Krendler's prefrontal cortex, sauteed with shallots, before Lecter kills him. The two then become lovers, and disappear together.

Three years later, Barney and his girlfriend go to Buenos Aires to see a Vermeer painting. At the opera, Barney spots Lecter and Starling; fearing for his life, he flees with his girlfriend.

HANNIBAL

THE TURBOPROP air ambulance lifted over the red tile roofs and banked


southwest toward Sardinia, the Leaning Tower of Pisa poking above the wing in


a turn steeper than the pilot would have made if he carried a living patient.


The stretcher intended for Dr Hannibal Lecter held instead the cooling body of


Matteo Deogracias. Older brother Carlo sat beside the corpse, his clothing


Carlo Deogracias made the medical attendant put on earphones and turn up the


music while he spoke on his cell phone to Las Vegas, where a blind encryption


repeater relayed his call to the Maryland shore . . .


For Mason Verger, night and day are much the same. He happened to be sleeping.


Even the aquarium lights were off. Mason's head was turned on the pillow, his


single eye ever open like the eyes of the great eel, which was sleeping too.


The only sounds were the regular hiss and sigh of the respirator, the soft


bubbling of the aerator in the aquarium.


Above these constant noises came another sound, soft and urgent. The buzzing


of Mason's most private telephone. His pale hand walked on its fingers like a


crab to push the telephone button. The speaker was under his pillow, the


First Mason heard the airplane in the background and then a cloying tune, "Gli


"My brother Matteo is dead. I have my hand on him now. Pazzi's dead too. Dr


"You owe two hundred thousand dollars for Matteo," Carlo said. "For his


Sardinian contracts always call for death benefits.


"Better to get it out that Pazzi was dirty," Mason said. "They'll take it


"Except for this, I don't know. What if they trace from Pazzi back to you?"


"I have to take care of myself," Carlo said. "This is too much. A chief


inspector of the Questura dead, I can't buy out of that."


"We did nothing, but if the Questura put my name in this-dirty Madonna!


They'll watch me for the rest of my life. Nobody will take fees from me, I


won't be able to break wind on the street. What about Oreste? Did he know who


"The Questura will have Dr Fell identified by tomorrow or the next day. Oreste


will put it together as soon as he sees the news, just from the timing."


"Oreste is well paid. Oreste is harmless to us."


"Maybe to you, but Oreste is facing a judge in a pornography case in Rome next


month. Now he has a thing to trade. If you don't know that already you should


kick some ass. You got to have Oreste?"


"I'll talk with Oreste," Mason said carefully, the rich tones of a radio


announcer coming from his ravaged face. "Carlo, are you still game? You want


to find Dr Fell now, don't you? You have to find him for Matteo."


"Then keep the farm going. Get certified swine flu and cholera inoculations


for the pigs. Get shipping crates for them. You have a good passport?"


"I mean a good one, Carlo, not some upstairs Trastevere crap."


Ending his connection in the droning airplane, Carlo inadvertently pushed the


auto dial on his cell phone. Matteo's telephone beeped loudly in his dead


hand, still held in the steely grip of cadaveric spasm. For an instant Carlo


thought his brother would raise the telephone to his ear. Dully, seeing that


Matteo could not answer, Carlo pushed his hang-up button. His face contorted


and the medical attendant could not look at him.


"Was he dirty?"