Harris, Thomas

Red Dragon

The man who caught Hannibal seeks his help in finding a man who has killed two families before he kills a third. The book also follows the activities of the killer and how his relationship with a woman might redeem him.

• The Silence of the Lambs
  Copyright 1988.
  The popular movie by the same name, starring Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins, follows this book very closely. If you liked the movie, you'll like the book for the additional details it provides.

  For those who have not read the book or seen the movie, the plot involves how a student at the FBI academy is able to track down a serial killer with the help of the imprisoned Hannibal Lechter, aka "Hannibal the Cannibal."

• Hannibal
  Copyright 1999.
  Following Clarice Starling's spectacular capture of serial killer Jame Gumb in "The Silence of the Lambs", her career seems to have landed in the backwaters of the FBI because of the actions of jealous colleagues. Starling's mentor, Jack Crawford, finds himself unable to do much to help her. When the opportunity comes up for her to chase down Hannibal, who escaped in the previous book, her efforts are thwarted by FBI insiders in league with a living victim of Hannibal's who is willing to pay a bundle to have Hannibal delivered to him alive so that he can exact his own sick revenge. Despite all this, Starling proves once again to be an effective investigator.

  This was a very strange book. It was enjoyable because of the twists and turns in the hunt for Hannibal but the action was interrupted by a series of asides by the author describing things in the life and mind of Hannibal Lechter which were narrated in a different "voice" from the main of the book. While reading it, I felt that I had missed reading a book between "Silence of the Lambs" and this one, but there are no others. The ending seemed improbable, and poorly explained. Perhaps there is a sequel in the works.

  Overall, the book was enjoyable, and you will have to decide for yourself whether or not you like the ending.

See also the Official Thomas Harris Website
http://www.thomasharris.com

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• Catch 22
• God Knows
• Good as Gold

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The House of Gentle Men

The author brings the time of post WWII Louisiana to life in this powerful story of damaged people and what they do to try to mend their souls.

A man, left by his wife, regrets his inattention and attempts to recall her to him by an almost karmic exercise. He runs "The House of Gentle Men" where haunted men repent and heal from the works of their inner demons by catering to overworked and underappreciated women whose lives have been drained of magic and courtly love by the demands of the times.

A stranger, a former soldier who has worked a number of different jobs without being able to find any satisfaction in his life because of an experience during the war, his participation in the rape of a young girl, turns up looking for the opportunity to redeem himself through employment at the House of Gentle Men.

A young woman, who lives in the House, who tries to erase her own demons by cleaning, dreams of finding a love of her own, possibly with this mysterious stranger. A former friend lives without speaking after some tragic events in her own life, one involving her brother, a reputed pyromaniac who is blamed for every fire.

These are just some of the characters that populate the book, which is evocative of the style of Toni Morrison, but more straightforward. The writer builds whole people with her words from the shells she introduces, people you will feel have actually existed.

This is truly a great literary work which I feel inadequate to properly describe except to say that if you enjoy good writing combined with a good story, you'll love this book! (Reviewed 2-16-00)

Check out the book's site at http://www.houseofgentlemen.com/home.html

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Hesse, Herman

• Demien
• Steppenwolf: A Novel

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Hillerman, Tony

Dance Hall of the Dead

It had been a long time since I had read one of Hillerman's books and I'm wondering why now that I've read this one. Joe Leaphorn ofthe Navajo Tribal Police investigates the death of a young man at the same time he shows a special way of looking at things and contrasts it with modern culture.

Buy from Amazon.com U.S. Harper Paperback, 1990
Buy from Amazon.co.uk Harper Prism Paperback, 1990

• Hunting Badger
  From retirement, Leaphorn assists in finding the perpetrators of a hold-up, one of whom is related to an old-time outlaw who may have had magical powers.

  Buy from Amazon.com U.S. Morrow Avon Paperback, 2001
  Buy from Amazon.co.uk Harper Collins Paperback, 2001

If you like these books which use American Indian lore as background for the mysteries, you will probably also like "Kiss of the Bees" by J.A. Jance, and books by William Kent Krueger.

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• A Thin Dark Line.
  If you've read Tami Hoag's earlier work and decided to go no further, think again. This book creates the suspense of the earlier novels, "Guilty as Sin" and "Night Sins", yet maintains a gripping pace. I hope her new book,
• Ashes to Ashes, will be as good as this one.

Billed as a psychological thriller, I suppose your best bet in deciding if this is a book you'd like is to look at the names of authors quoted on the cover: Tami Hoag, Iris Johansen, and Catherine Coulter.

This is "Thriller Lite", with more romance than thrills when a Cassie, a psychic, moves to a house that she inherited from a relative in a small town. She had recently attempted to help police in L.A. catch a serial killer but some of the signs she received were misleading, leaving the police in a position to be too late to help a victim. Needless to say, she feels bad about the whole situation and, when she attempts to assist with the investigation regarding a serial killer in her new home, the local D.A. takes her under his wing despite the fact that the local investigator is skeptical of her claims to be able to predict the murders.

Lacking the complexity of a "Rowan Gant" mystery, or a Lee Driver book, it was nontheless diverting while I was on a short trip recently without anything else to read.

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These books were great, with some of the same characters in each, with each answering questions about circumstances in the others. Some are better than others. I started by reading Hot Springs, which is described as a prequel to the other three featuring the son as the main character. If you like Lee Child's Jack Reacher character, you'll like these.

• Hot Springs
• Point of Impact
• Dirty White Boys
• Black Light

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• Room for the Dead.
  Police thriller.

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