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 DEVIL'S Armor with its horned helmet is a splendid suit of fifteenth-


century Italian armor that has hung high on the wall in the village church of


Santa Reparata south of Florence since 1501. In addition to the graceful


horns, shaped like those of the chamois, the pointed gauntlet cuffs are stuck


where shoes should be, at the ends of the greaves, suggesting the cloven


According to the local legend, a young man wearing the armor took the name of


the Virgin in vain as .he passed the church, and found that afterward he could


not take his armor off until he beseeched the Virgin for forgiveness. He gave


the armor to the church as a gift of thanksgiving. It is an impressive


presence and it honored its proof marks when an artillery shell burst in the


The armor, its upper surfaces covered with a felt-like coating of dust, looks


down on the small sanctuary now as Mass is being completed. Incense rises,


Only three people are in attendance, two elderly women, both dressed in black,


and Dr Hannibal Lecter. All three take Communion, though Dr Lecter touches his


The priest completes the benediction and withdraws. The women depart. Dr


Lecter continues his devotions until he is alone in the sanctuary.


From the organ loft, Dr Lecter can just reach over the railing and, leaning


between the horns, raise the dusty visor on the helmet of the Devil's Armor.


Inside, a fishhook over the lip of the gorget suspends a string and a package


hanging inside the cuirass where the heart would be. Carefully, Dr Lecter


A package: passports of the best Brazilian manufacture, identification, cash,


bankbooks, keys. He puts it under his arm beneath his coat.


Dr Lecter does not indulge much in regret, but he was sorry to be leaving


Italy. There were things in the Palazzo Capponi that he would have liked to


find and read. He would have liked to play the clavier and perhaps compose; he


might have cooked for the Widow Pazzi, when she overcame her grief.
