Hannibal Rising

About Hannibal Rising

Hannibal Rising is a novel written by Thomas Harris, the fourth in a series featuring his most famous character, Hannibal Lecter. The novel, a prequel to Harris' Lecter novels, chronicles the iconic serial killer's childhood and early adulthood. The novel was released on December 5, 2006 with an initial printing of at least 1.5 million copies and had a mixed response, many thinking that the book reduced Lecter to a simple psychological case.[citation needed] A CD version has also been released, with Harris reading the text.

Lecter is eight years old when at the beginning of the novel (1941), living in Lecter Castle in Lithuania, when Operation Barbarossa, Adolf Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union turns the Baltic region into a part of the bloodiest front line of World War II. Lecter, his sister Mischa and his parents escape to the family's hunting lodge in the woods to elude the advancing German troops. After three years, the Nazis are finally driven out of the countries now occupied by the Soviet Union. During their retreat, however, they destroy a Soviet tank that had stopped at the Lecter family's lodge looking for water. The explosion kills everyone but Lecter and Mischa. They survive in the cottage until six former Lithuanian militiamen, led by a Nazi collaborator named Vladis Grutas, storm and loot it. Finding no other food, they kill and cannibalize a young boy they have captured and held, chained, in the barn, and then Lecter's young sister Mischa to the despair and agony of young Hannibal who has to watch her being dragged, screaming his name, suspended in the air by her arms. Lecter is beaten with a log as he hears an axe end the life of Mischa. He blacks out and is later found wandering and mute by a Soviet tank crew that takes him back to Lecter Castle, which is now a Soviet orphanage.

Lecter is removed from the orphanage by his uncle, a noted painter, and he goes to live with him in France. The happiness of their lives together is cut short with his uncle's sudden death. Most of the estate is taken for death duties.