2.5 stars . Thomas Harris had ideas, but he was a very bad writer. 
 His writing style is unreadable to me . It's curtailed with extreme brevity, sprayed with an excessive amount of dialogues as if he was writing a play, while sometimes he didn't say who said what, so it's confusing to me because I kept having to double back to the start of the conversation and see who speaks first, who speaks next.... Worst of all, almost every character had the same speaking style, in tedious tones, like this: 
 "He's right." 
 "You could tell something about him or you wouldn't have found that fingerprint". 
 "That was the evidence on the damn wall, Jack. Don't put me on this..." 
 "Oh, we'll get him. You know we'll get him, don't you?" 
 "I know it. One way or the other." 
 90% things go like this. Anytime the conversation turns to Will and his wife, Molly, I yawned. They basically repeated the same thing over and over like: How're you? I miss you. Tell Willy I love him... Will, come home. Yada, Yada. Bored me to tear. 
 The only interesting character is Francis Dolarhyde. God, and if you watch the movie version with Ralph Fiennes in it, he's a hottty! But basically, throughout the book, I was really disgusted by this guy, yet somehow still had a super, super, tiny amount of sympathy towards him. He had a very bad childhood and Harris explained his background quite well. 
 All the other characters are card-board cut out. What do Jack Crawford like? What's his weakness or what's his constant mood? No idea. What Dr. Alan Bloom like? No idea, either. They are just basically there to comment on the crime with scientific evidences like a wikipedia book. 
 In truth, this book had no emotion, just pure encyclopedia-detailed like about the case. 
 Thomas Harris isn't a writer. He is just a reporter. 
 RANT: I pick up this book to see Dr. Hannibal Lecter!!!! But Dr.Lecter is barely there . He had like a few little lines, and play a minor role in the case. His only shining moment is the greeting card he sent to Will Graham: 
 "Did you feel so bad because killing him feel so good? Killing must feel good to God too. He does it all the time. Aren't we created in his image?" 
 Yeah, Dr.Lecter is awesome. I like the backplot with William Blake's painting The Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed with the Sun, but Harris failed to truly captivate the sense or uniqueness of the picture, basically just put it there so it can serve as an alternate self or sexual/killing impetus to Francis. I really want to know more about the historic background, the color, the structure, the theme of the painting. 
 Sum up: This book's plot is terrific, with action, crime scenes, and killers, but the way the author told it made you feel like reading a huge encyclopedia.