Will Graham stands in a silent, empty house communing with a killer. An FBI instructor with a gift for hunting madmen, Graham knows what his murderer looks like, how he thinks, and what he did to his victims after they died. Now Graham must try to catch him. But to do it, he must feel the heat of a killer's brain, draw on the macabre advice of a dangerous mental patient, Dr. Hannibal Lecter, and follow a trail of microscopic clues to the place where...

Explores the early relationship between FBI criminal profiler Will Graham and psychiatrist Dr. Hannibal Lecter.

When FBI agent Clarice Starling is assigned a case involving a monstrous serial killer, she seeks counsel from an imprisoned cannibalistic psychiatrist Dr. Hannibal Lecter, whose fascination with the young woman is as great as his hunger for murder. As their relationship develops, Starling must confront her own demons, and an evil so powerful that she may not have the courage or strength to stop it.

Chronicles serial killer Hannibal Lecter's childhood and early adulthood after being taken from a Soviet orphanage to live with his uncle and aunt in France. He becomes the youngest person ever to attend medical school in France.