"Remember the rules. Do not put your hand through the bars, not even to touch them. We never take Lecter out of his cell without a muzzle and handcuffs..."

The young FBI trainee agent Clarice Starling meets Hannibal Lecter for the first time. The genius psychiatrist, convicted of a series of cannibalistic crimes, agrees to help her capture another dangerous butcher, "Buffalo Bill," in exchange for her baring her soul to him. Through his cryptic hints and indirect suggestions - about "Buffalo Bill" and herself - Starling is led into a frantic, frenzied investigation, and Thomas Harris captivates his readers with a feeling deeper than terror...

"The Silence of the Lambs" was unanimously recognized as one of the best thrillers of all time. It shook the reading public, giving suspense literature one of the most interesting and magnetic "monsters" ever born from an author's imagination. It has since remained a classic and unsurpassed work, a reference point for all subsequent novels of the genre.