HANNIBAL LECTER WASN'T BORN A MONSTER.

HE WAS MADE ONE.

Hannibal Lecter emerges from the nightmare of the Eastern Front of World War II, a boy in the snow, mute, with a chain around his neck. He will not speak of what happened to him and his family. He seems utterly alone, but he has brought his demons with him.

Hannibal's uncle, a noted painter, finds him in a Soviet orphanage and brings him to France. There, Hannibal lives with his uncle and his uncle's beautiful and exotic wife, Lady Murasaki, who helps him to heal - and flourish.

But Hannibal's demons are not so easily defeated. Throughout his young life, they visit him and torment him. When he is old enough, he visits them in turn - and in the fog of traumatic memory, he discovers that he has gifts far beyond what he imagined...

Thomas Harris is the author of five novels and is perhaps best known for his character Hannibal Lecter. All of his books have been made into films, including most notably the multiple Oscar winner, The Silence of the Lambs. Harris began his writing career covering crime in the United States and Mexico, and was a reporter and editor at the Associated Press in New York.