Red Dragon II

I’m now finished, and I gotta say, this book didn’t quite live up to my expectations. It was good, and it was enjoyable, but I went in expecting something on par with “silence of the lambs,” and I’m afraid I set the bar too high. I still plan on reading Harris’s other novels, just because I really did love the silence of the lambs. I’ll have to see for myself if the book is as good as the movie. The author did pull a pretty good trick, I must say. I was disappointed that the psychotic killer that I spent so many hours learning about and understanding (sort of) had killed himself, without even confronting the hero, Graham. I thought it was a pretty bad way to end the book, especially after so much build up. But then, in what seemed to be the conclusion of the book, the killer bursts into the peaceful beach home where Graham lives, and tangles with Graham. Luckily for the whole family, Graham’s girlfriend still had the gun that he had made her carry with her. The killer is killed, and the characters shudder in pain and shock, as does the reader (minus the pain). This was easily the most thrilling part of the book, because it was so unexpected. I did enjoy the surprise, but I must say that when the reader is so caught by surprise, the content and story seem less believable, and the story as a whole is compromised. Stephen King wrote that a writer must make sure that what he/she writes is believable, and what Harris wrote was border line.