Rating: 9/10
- Plot: An FBI trainee is sent to interview Hannibal Lecter for help in catching a serial killer who skins his victims.
- Clues: Lecter’s riddles, forensic evidence and the psychology of the killer.
- Reveal: Tense and satisfying, with an unforgettable climax in darkness.
- Science bonus: An insect pupa found in a victim’s throat is identified by entomologists, and that single piece of natural science becomes a crucial lead, alongside Lecter’s psychiatric insight.
Clarice Starling, a trainee at the FBI Academy, is sent by Jack Crawford to interview Hannibal Lecter, the imprisoned psychiatrist and cannibal. The FBI hopes Lecter can help them identify Buffalo Bill, a serial killer who kidnaps young women and skins them. When a senator’s daughter is abducted, the stakes rise.
Thomas Harris’s sequel to Red Dragon is even more successful. Clarice is an exceptional heroine, intelligent, ambitious and vulnerable, from a poor background and determined to prove herself in a male-dominated world. Her conversations with Lecter, in which he trades clues for details of her childhood, are among the most famous scenes in crime fiction.
The novel is carefully plotted, alternating between the FBI, Lecter’s prison, and the killer’s house. The forensic details are convincing, and the tension builds steadily.
The portrayal of the killer has been criticised for linking him to transgender identity, even though Harris insists the character is not transgender. That aspect has aged badly.
The 9 reflects a brilliant thriller, one of the best of its kind. Jonathan Demme’s 1991 film won five major Academy Awards and made Lecter a cultural icon.
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