This shows up on various The Movie Was Better lists and I have to say they’re wrong, this time. Sure the major plot beats are the same but being in Starlings head is far more compelling (as you would expect from fiction). The mic drop of the lambs and their actual silence hits differently, because it has far more setup. The power dynamics between her and everyone she meets, how her mind works—all of it is better here.

The largest divergence and something heartening to see was the very explicit, and often reiterated, point that Buffalo Bill is not a trans person (though it uses the antiquated transsexual because of the time it was written in). In fact, there are three or four advocates in the fiction explaining real life stats that do not jibe with the misconception of trans people being mentally ill and dangerous. And they explain why Buffalo Bill isn’t one and why his psychosis chooses to purport himself as such, in a way mirroring the public perception, allowing it to be corrected in numerous ways.

The prose work isn’t literary, but it is miles above typical commercial fiction and far more aware than most catch-the-killer narratives. It’s nuanced, it’s thematic, and it does a good job of advocating for everyone marginalized, which the movie pretty much completely sidesteps. The movie pumps up Crawford and rearranges his plot arc somewhat as well, again somewhat at the expense of Starling. On every front the book is better. Of course, if you find yourself not liking the research entering the fiction portions it might bug you, but I think most readers, including myself, want that amount of detail about the FBI operations. It’s the meat and potatoes or narratives like this, and I imagine made all the more popular by this book and this series.