Hannibal Rising (Hannibal Lecter #4) by Thomas Harris

Thomas Harris shows us Hannibal Lecter as he becomes the most frightening man in the world...

On the Easter Front are all the ingredients to make a monster. This brilliant orphaned child has demons lurking in the chambers of his memory, gouging him with fragments of his hideous past.

If he can confront the demons in his heart and brain, he can find them in the flesh, hunt them down and achieve a kind of peace.

A beautiful and exotic woman takes him to her heart, using every weapon and every wile at her command to save him from the dark, to stem the terrible forces unleashed by Hannibal Lecter's first taste of blood.