Four stars is probably a little generous here, considering how bored I was around the halfway mark.

I suppose it's the age of the book, maybe when the book first came out in 1981 the serial killer nicknamed Tooth Fairy would have been something special, something exciting. I found it a mishmash of every vague predictable serial killer I've ever heard of, but then I'm living in 2022, and the field of profiling has both grown quite a bit and made it into the media as an entertainment tool.

However, the ending sold it to me. I loved it, it was very bleak.
I'm almost a little sad that the next book isn't about Will Graham, tho he might make an appearance (as I haven't read the book yet). But throughout the entire book there was this underlying tension of "is Hannibal Lecter right about Graham?". And I'd like to see how that evolved (or devolved?)

That being said tho, despite being labeled the first book in the Hannibal Lecter series. He had very little to do with it. And we didn't even get to hear anything about his crimes.