Red Dragon
By Thomas Harris
Published October 1981
Red Dragon by Thomas Harris is a psychological horror that revolves around former FBI profiler, Will Graham. After catching the “Chesapeake Ripper”, Hannibal Lecter, Will Graham went into retirement where he met his wife Molly. Jack Crawford, Will’s old boss, returns and disrupts Will’s peace to get his aid in catching an enigmatic serial killer who is known as the “Tooth Fairy”.
Thomas Harris is a very well-known author for writing Silence of the Lambs, a book set after the events of Red Dragon. His first book ever was Black Sunday, released in 1975, which Red Dragon followed – being released in 1981. Silence of the Lambs (1988) and the series of Hannibal (1999-2006) that follows tend to overshadow Red Dragon, despite being in the same universe. Red Dragon is set to be in 1980 and 10 years later we meet Clarice Starling in Silence of the Lambs. All these books, minus Black Sunday, revolved around Hannibal. This famous character, Hannibal Lecter, brought movies and shows revolving around these stories. In 1991 Silence of the Lambs was released as a movie and in 2002 Red Dragon was released as a movie. 2013-2015 was when the Hannibal show aired, its last season being the same events that took place in the Red Dragon book.
Thomas Harris himself is an amazing writer. One thing that sets Red Dragon apart from his other books is his main character Will Graham. Will Graham is a very complex character, but Thomas Harris still keeps him realistic and relatable. His other characters are easy to understand and get to know while Will Graham and Hannibal Lecter have such bizarre traits that it is almost impossible to see the motive behind their actions. Not to mention, Thomas Harris creates a nice balance in his book by adding some comedic lines and scenes. Thomas Harris is not one to shy away from curse words either and neither are his characters. His writing style is beautiful and easy to follow.
However, Silence of the Lambs does do a few things better – which is expected considering it came out after Red Dragon. Thomas Harris has written no book about Hannibal and Will Graham’s relationship and he has given almost little to no background on it. The only way one would know general knowledge on it is if they watch the show or movies before reading – which ruins the fun of reading. Silence of the Lambs lets you meet the main character, Clarice Starling, as soon as the book starts and everyone knows about Hannibal from Red Dragon. The whole book is based on Will Graham returning to the workforce after he was forced into retirement because of the mental toll trying to catch Hannibal took on him. It is hard to understand their relationship dynamic when there is very little background on what happened to them. It is almost like Thomas Harris just assumes his audience already knows.
The book, all in all, is most definitely worth the read. It is better than his others and Will Graham is a fantastic character to get to know. Not to mention, Thomas Harris gives such immense details it almost feels as if you are in the scene with everyone. I do not regret reading this book and I plan to read it again.
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