Also the third book by Thomas Harris with Hannibal Lecter, with a Movie adaption planned for 2001, according to IMDB.

The events in the book take place about 7 years after Silence of the Lambs. Clarice Starling is on a dead-end career path in the FBI, and Lecter has found a new life in Florence that does not require him to kill anyone to get by. However, Mason Verger, a wealthy sick bastard who is also Lecter's sole surviving victim, has put out a bounty for the kidnapping of the good doctor. In addition, Starling gets involved in a public scandal when she kills a drug dealer during a firefight, while the dealer was holding a baby. These events throw Verger, Starling, and Lecter on a collision course that is unravelled over the 500-odd pages of the book.

I didn't care for this book. It read too much like a movie script, and the motivations of the characters were just too unbelievable. Especially for Harris' twist ending, which I despised. We are also presented with a motive for Lecter's actions, which I think was best left unsaid.

Read the book, and you'll see why Jodie Foster decided to turn down her movie role for Starling.

****Ending spoiler follows****

In Harris' ending, Lecter kidnaps Starling, then drugs her and gives her some therapy of his own (the helpful kind). After a dinner in which Lecter and Starling devour Starling's nemesis at the FBI, the two fall in love and run away to Brazil together, to live happily ever after. Not only did this seem pretty perverted (it reads like all Clarice needed was a good fucking), it also seemed a cop-out, as though Harris was unwilling to let Lecter die, which I think was necessary. Imagine watching Apocalypse Now, but at the end of the movie, Martin Sheen and Marlon Brando team up to win the Vietnam War for America, returning home as heros. That was the kind of stunt Harris was trying to pull.

Personally, I think a formulaic Hollywood ending would be preferable to Harris' choice. IMDB lists both Harris and the talented David Mamet as co-writers for the screenplay, so maybe Mamet will be able to talk sense into his partner.