Five novels featuring monstrous men

Heather Parry is a Glasgow-based writer and editor, originally from South Yorkshire. Her debut novel, Orpheus Builds a Girl, was shortlisted for the Saltire Society Fiction Book of the Year Award and longlisted for the Polari First Book Prize. She is also the author of a short story collection, This Is My Body, Given For You, and the non-fiction book, Electric Dreams: On Sex Robots and the Failed Promises of Capitalism. Parry lives in Glasgow with her partner and their cats, Ernesto and Fidel. Her second novel, Carrion Crow, will be published in 2026.

At CrimeReads the author tagged five "books that continue to inspire me for their bold, unflinching ways of looking at the monstrous man, both the real and fictionalized versions of him." One title on the list:

Patrick Süskind, Perfume: the Story of a Murderer

The 1980s might have been the decade that Hannibal Lecter was introduced to the world by Thomas Harris, first in Red Dragon and then in The Silence of the Lambs, but on the other side of the Atlantic, German writer Patrick Süskind was dreaming up another killer with sharp senses: Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, an orphan born in eighteenth-century France, whose preternatural sense of smell leads him first to the business of perfume and then onto somewhere darker.

Just as Lecter spends his time considering the perfect meal, Grenouille is obsessed with harnessing the perfect smell, one that he first smelled on the skin of a young woman, with which he has become dangerously preoccupied. His attempts to distill that essence into a liquid push him down a path of multiple murders as his singular goal overwhelms his respect for life, but despite being caught, he performs a trick at the end of the book which reveals the latent desires within the population in general, showing that he is not alone in having a streak of pure evil in him, bound up in sensory pleasure.

This is a novel that luxuriates in both filth and opulence, and says more about the nature of lust than we would like to admit.

Read about another novel on the list.

Perfume is among Liz Nugent's top ten first lines in fiction, Liz Boulter's ten best novels about France, Glenn Skwerer's top ten real-life monsters in fiction, four books that changed Meg Keneally, four books that changed Katrina Lawrence, Karen Runge's five (damn-near) perfect (dark) novels, and Lara Feigel's top ten smelly books.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven of the greatest cooks in literature

Samuel Ashworth has been a bartender, a dancer, and a reporter. He has gutted seafood in the back of Michelin-starred restaurants and assisted with autopsies in a Pittsburgh hospital. His fiction and nonfiction appear in the Atlantic, the Washington Post, Longreads, Eater, Hazlitt, Gawker, The Rumpus, and so on. He is a professor of creative writing at George Washington University, and assistant fiction editor at Barrelhouse Magazine. A native New Yorker, he now lives with his wife and two sons in Washington, DC.

At Electric Lit Ashworth tagged seven great cooks in literature, including:

Hannibal Lecter from Red Dragon by Thomas Harris (followed by multiple sequels and TV/film adaptations)

Let’s pretend we can get Donald Trump’s sneering pronunciation of the name out of our head for a while, and focus instead on the actual character, for whom good manners are as important as they are to Paddington Bear. Of course, while Paddington handles people who forget their manners by giving them a Hard Stare, Lecter kills and eats them. But if that were all he did, he wouldn’t have spawned four decades of multimedia franchising. We keep coming back to Hannibal not because he turns people into food, but into cuisine. He gave us the most famous wine pairing in American culture, liver and Chianti. The most recent portrayal of Harris’s character, by Mads Mikkelsen, is food porn at its most exquisite. The show’s food stylist, Janice Poon, released a full cookbook of Hannibal’s recipes. Small wonder that our response to Hannibal’s killing sprees is usually: “let him cook.”

Read about another entry on the list.

Red Dragon appears on Jen Williams's list of four unforgettable fictional serial killers, Caroline Louise Walker's list of six terrifying villain-doctors in fiction, Peter Swanson's list of ten thrillers that explore mental health, John Verdon's list of the ten best whodunits, Laura McHugh's list of ten favorite books about serial killers, Kimberly Turner's list of the ten most disturbing sociopaths in literature, John Mullan's lists of ten of the best dragons in literature and ten of the best tattoos in literature, and the (U.K.) Telegraph 110 best books; Andre Gross says "it should be taught as [a text] in Thriller 101."

--Marshal Zeringue

Five novels in which love conquers & sometimes destroys

T.M. Dunn is the author of three novels, Her Father's Daughter (2023), Last Stop On The 6 (2021,) and Rebels By Accident (2014). She has served as Senior Director of the Writing Institute at Sarah Lawrence College, where she holds a MFA in creative writing, and currently coaches aspiring and established writers and teaches creative writing workshops.

At CrimeReads Dunn tagged five "novels where love drives characters to dangerous extremes," including:

Meg Gardiner’s UNSUB was published in 2017, and when the Boston Globe wrote that it had hints of “Silence of the Lambs,” I immediately clicked and purchased the hardcover. Anyone who had ever taken one of my creative writing classes knows that Hannibal Lecter is one of my favorite characters of all time. How the author, Thomas Harris, manages to get you, me, to root for a serial killer is extraordinary. I shamefully admit I let life get in my way and never read the novel. It was only recently, with a very long drive ahead of me to see my sister, I downloaded the audiobook and was captivated, no serial killer pun intended. There’s no question that the protagonist’s love for her father is the inspiration for her to become a detective who solves crimes and protects people.

When the serial killer, to whom her father devoted years of his life and most of Caitlin’s childhood trying and failing to stop, surfaces again, the love for her father, the need to save him, leads her down the similar destructive path that in many ways destroyed her father.

Read about another entry on the list.

The Page 69 Test: UNSUB.

--Marshal Zeringue

Four unforgettable fictional serial killers

Jen Williams lives in London with her partner and their small ridiculous cat. Having been a fan of grisly fairy tales from a young age, these days Williams writes dark unsettling thrillers with strong female leads, as well as character-driven fantasy novels with plenty of adventure and magic. She has twice won the British Fantasy Award for her Winnowing Flame trilogy, and when she's not writing books she works as a bookseller and a freelance copywriter.

Her new novel is A Dark and Secret Place.

At CrimeReads Williams tagged four favorite dark and twisted villains of fictional lore, including:

Francis Dolarhyde of Red Dragon

You could hardly have a list like this without talking about Thomas Harris and his iconic cast of serial killers, and, specifically of course, Dr Hannibal Lector. First appearing in 1981’s Red Dragon, the doctor is in many ways the grandfather of fictional serial killers, undoubtedly giving birth to hordes of murderers after the huge success of The Silence of the Lambs. After all, it’s Dr. Lector who has really sold us on the idea of a murderer who is just so much cleverer than anyone else in the room, and if you’re a fan of the TV series Hannibal, one who dresses impeccably well, too. But for me the killer that truly haunts me from Thomas Harris’s excellent books is Francis Dolarhyde. Dubbed “the Tooth Fairy” by the press (and what a fantastically rubbish nickname that is), Dolarhyde is murdering entire families to quicken his transformation into a being he calls “the Great Red Dragon,” and Will Graham must enlist the help of Dr. Lector to stop him. Dolahyde is equal parts fascinating, terrifying, and tragic. He is obsessed with William Blake’s painting “The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed With the Sun,” even going so far as to eat the original watercolour, and there is something flatly alien about his transformation into a beast. Yet Harris undercuts all this by having Dolahyde unexpectedly fall for a blind woman at his work place. This, combined with flashbacks to his horrifically abusive childhood, give the reader an uncomfortably intimate portrait of a monster.

Read about another entry on the list.

Red Dragon appears on Caroline Louise Walker's list of six terrifying villain-doctors in fiction, Peter Swanson's list of ten thrillers that explore mental health, John Verdon's list of the ten best whodunits, Laura McHugh's list of ten favorite books about serial killers, Kimberly Turner's list of the ten most disturbing sociopaths in literature, John Mullan's lists of ten of the best dragons in literature and ten of the best tattoos in literature, and the (U.K.) Telegraph 110 best books; Andre Gross says "it should be taught as [a text] in Thriller 101."

--Marshal Zeringue

Claire Holroyde's "The Effort," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: The Effort by Claire Holroyde.

The entry begins:

With its ensemble cast and multiple narrative threads, The Effort would better adapt to an original series. I select Naren Shankar, showrunner for The Expanse, to bring the novel to life. Naren respects science. He holds a PhD in Applied Physics & Electrical Engineering from Cornell University no less. However, he doesn’t let science overshadow meaningful drama. The Expanse is one of the best shows on television, outside of any categorization. It’s a successful adaptation of the book series by James S. A. Corey and features everything I would desire for my own: an epic storyline, a large and diverse ensemble cast, expert screenwriting, and complex production design.

As for casting the international characters of The Effort, let me roll up my sleeves and populate its two main settings: a spaceport at the South American equator and a polar icebreaker on a research expedition in the Arctic.

Spaceport in French Guiana

Dr. Ben Schwartz, a NASA manager turned science lead of the Defense Effort for Comet UD3, would be played by Hugh Dancy of Hannibal and Homeland. Dancy could emanate brilliance, manic intensity, sarcasm, and desperation as the mission’s launch window reduces. Ben’s partner, Amy Kowalski, would be played by...[read on]

Visit Claire Holroyde's website.

My Book, The Movie: The Effort.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six terrifying villain-doctors in fiction

Caroline Louise Walker grew up in Rock Island, Illinois. For her fiction and nonfiction, she has received fellowships from The MacDowell Colony, The Kerouac Project, Jentel Arts and Hambidge Center for the Creative Arts & Sciences. She holds an MA from NYU.

Man of the Year is Walker's first novel.

At CrimeReads she tagged six medical men with terrible designs, including:

HANNIBAL LECTER from Red Dragon, The Silence of the Lambs, by Thomas Harris

Hannibal the Cannibal is skilled at many things—for example, infiltrating our nightmares. He is a legend on the page and in pop culture, thanks to Harris’s brilliant choice to balance depravity against refined taste and class. Lecter speaks beautifully, lives beautifully, and yes, eats his victims’ remains. But his threat to his victims’ minds is the first point of vulnerability—and the piece that keeps us up at night, shuddering at the thought of fava beans.

Lecter is a psychiatrist, not a surgeon, but the prospect of having one’s thoughts penetrated by this character is sufficiently disturbing. We can imagine ourselves trusting him, in his civilized life, in his office, in our naïveté. We do it all the time.

And yet, there is no rest for the weary. Even in a maximum security prison, Lecter is asked to keep his criminal mind sharp, rather than taking a break.

Read about another entry on the list.

Red Dragon appears on Peter Swanson's list of ten thrillers that explore mental health, John Verdon's list of the ten best whodunits, Laura McHugh's list of ten favorite books about serial killers, Kimberly Turner's list of the ten most disturbing sociopaths in literature, John Mullan's lists of ten of the best dragons in literature and ten of the best tattoos in literature, and the (U.K.) Telegraph 110 best books; Andre Gross says "it should be taught as [a text] in Thriller 101."

The Silence of The Lambs is among Kathy Reichs's six best books, Matt Suddain's five great meals from literature, Elizabeth Heiter's ten favorite serial killer novels, Jill Boyd's five books with the worst fictional characters to invite to Thanksgiving, Monique Alice's six great fictional evil geniuses, sixteen book-to-movie adaptations that won Academy Awards.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Lara Elena Donnelly reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Lara Elena Donnelly, author of Amnesty: Book 3 in the Amberlough Dossier.

Her entry begins:

Back in 2012, one of my Clarion instructors mentioned The Talented Mr. Ripley in workshop. The name was vaguely familiar, but only as a received pop culture artifact. But she talked about it in such glowing terms I thought, I guess I’d better read this.

And I tried. But I bounced off it like a superball.

Years passed. My tastes changed. My own writing, and my understanding of other authors’ craft, improved. And, after a bout with another thriller many blurbs and reviews hailed as “Ripleyesque,” which I found equal parts un-put-downable and deeply frustrating on a couple of craft levels, I thought, maybe I should try Ripley again.

I tore through it this time. Whenever I set it aside to do something else, I was back on the sofa within half an hour. Patricia Highsmith makes every moment of that book feel like a potential turning point in Tom Ripley’s hectic, high-stakes scam. None of the characters is a hero or a villain; the book is a masterclass in winning reader empathy through characterization and context.

Recently, after looking at some pages for a proposed new project, my editor said they reminded her of Highsmith, and asked if I could lean even harder on that tone, those characters, that voice. I had pitched the project as Perfume: The Story of a Murderer meets Brian Fuller’s Hannibal, in the style of Donna Tartt. But as soon as she said “Highsmith,” I knew she was right.

So I’ve lately finished Strangers on a Train, her debut, and...[read on]

About Amnesty, from the publisher:

In Amberlough City, out of the ASHES of revolution, a TRAITOR returns, a political CAMPAIGN comes to a roaring head, and the people demand JUSTICE for crimes past.

As a nation struggles to rebuild, who can escape retribution?

Amnesty is a smart, decadent, heart-pounding conclusion to Lara Elena Donnelly’s widely-praised glam spy trilogy that will have readers enthralled until the very end.

Visit Lara Elena Donnelly's website.

My Book, The Movie: Amberlough.

Writers Read: Lara Elena Donnelly.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Matthew Carr's "The Savage Frontier"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: The Savage Frontier: The Pyrenees in History and the Imagination by Matthew Carr.

About the book, from the publisher:

With the Catalonia crisis making international headlines, the unique cultural and geographic region bordering Spain and France has once again moved to the center of the world’s attention. In The Savage Frontier, acclaimed author and journalist Matthew Carr uncovers the fascinating, multilayered story of the Pyrenees region—at once a forbidding, mountainous frontier zone of stunning beauty, home to a unique culture, and a site of sharp conflict between nations and empires.

Carr follows the routes taken by monks, soldiers, poets, pilgrims, and refugees. He examines the people and events that have shaped the Pyrenees across the centuries, with a cast of characters including Napoleon, Hannibal, and Charlemagne; the eccentric British climber Henry Russell; Francisco Sabaté Llopart, the Catalan anarchist who waged a lone war against the Franco regime across the Pyrenees for years after the civil war; Camino de Santiago pilgrims; and the cellist Pablo Casals, who spent twenty-three years in exile only a few miles from the Spanish border to show his disgust and disapproval of the Spanish regime.

The Savage Frontier is a book that will spark a new awareness and appreciation of one of the most haunting, magical, and dramatic landscapes on earth.

Visit Matthew Carr's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Devils of Cardona.

Writers Read: Matthew Carr.

The Page 99 Test: The Savage Frontier.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven top conspiracy thrillers from the 1970s

Daniel Palmer is a critically acclaimed suspense novelist.

One of his seven favorite conspiracy thrillers of the 1970s, as shared at CrimeReads:

Thomas Harris, Black Sunday

The 1975 novel by Thomas Harris (yes, the same Thomas Harris who gave us Hannibal Lecter) deals with a pact between Michael Lander, a pilot who flies the Aldrich Blimp over NFL football games, and Black September, the terrorist organization responsible for the massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics. Lander, a former POW from the Vietnam War, is deranged and angry at all the happy football fans he helps film from high above, which is why he’s willing to kill himself and take as many people as possible with him in the process. Like The Day of the Jackal, the book is a hunt as American and Israeli intelligence forces track the path of explosives into the country that will eventually lead them to a blimp bomb made of plastique and a quarter million steel darts. Harris makes the case that conspiracies don’t have to involve shadowy governments to be terrifying. He also portrays how war can do an equally good job of creating killers as any covert government operation. Black Sunday was the novel my father returned to on many occasions when he needed reminders of how to build suspense to a knuckle-whitening degree.

Learn about another book on the list.

Black Sunday is among Howard Gordon's five best thrillers with terror themes and Gerald Seymour's five riveting novels about terrorism.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Matthew Carr reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Matthew Carr, author of The Savage Frontier: The Pyrenees in History and the Imagination.

His entry begins:

When I'm writing non-fiction, my reading tends be dominated by the subject in hand. I try to read obsessively on whatever project i'm writing about so that I'm completely filled up by it. When I'm in between books, as I am now, I try to read more freely, either catching up on books I've been looking forward to, or following possibilities that interest me. I'm currently looking into the possibility of a book on the Arctic, so I read Barry Lopez's Arctic Dreams. Few people write more eloquently or gracefully about landscape and nature than Lopez. Every time I read him...[read on]

About The Savage Frontier, from the publisher:

With the Catalonia crisis making international headlines, the unique cultural and geographic region bordering Spain and France has once again moved to the center of the world’s attention. In The Savage Frontier, acclaimed author and journalist Matthew Carr uncovers the fascinating, multilayered story of the Pyrenees region—at once a forbidding, mountainous frontier zone of stunning beauty, home to a unique culture, and a site of sharp conflict between nations and empires.

Carr follows the routes taken by monks, soldiers, poets, pilgrims, and refugees. He examines the people and events that have shaped the Pyrenees across the centuries, with a cast of characters including Napoleon, Hannibal, and Charlemagne; the eccentric British climber Henry Russell; Francisco Sabaté Llopart, the Catalan anarchist who waged a lone war against the Franco regime across the Pyrenees for years after the civil war; Camino de Santiago pilgrims; and the cellist Pablo Casals, who spent twenty-three years in exile only a few miles from the Spanish border to show his disgust and disapproval of the Spanish regime.

The Savage Frontier is a book that will spark a new awareness and appreciation of one of the most haunting, magical, and dramatic landscapes on earth.

Visit Matthew Carr's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Devils of Cardona.

Writers Read: Matthew Carr.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Estep Nagy reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Estep Nagy, author of We Shall Not All Sleep: A Novel.

His entry begins:

I’ve been re-reading Livy’s History of Rome, specifically the Oxford World Classics volume called Hannibal’s War.

That war (between Rome and Carthage, ca. 200 BC) lasted nearly twenty years, during most of which the Carthaginian general Hannibal occupied much of Italy. On a few occasions, Hannibal nearly captured Rome itself. Like all existential crises, that war produced impressive personalities who rose to the occasion. I’m especially drawn to Publius Cornelius Scipio, later known as Scipio Africanus, who took over the Spanish front of that war at a very young age (24!) after the horrific deaths of his father and uncle, who were generals there before him. Like Julius Caesar 150 years later, Scipio was a thoughtful leader with preternatural talents for...[read on]

About We Shall Not All Sleep, from the publisher:

Seven Island has two houses. One for Hillsingers and one for Quicks.

1964. The Hillsingers and the Quicks have shared the small Maine island of Seven for generations. But though technically family--Jim Hillsinger and Billy Quick married Park Avenue sisters Lila and Hannah Blackwell--they do not mix. Now, on the anniversary of Hannah's death, Lila feels grief pulling her toward Billy. And Jim, a spy recently ousted from the CIA on suspicion of treason, decides to carry out the threat his wife has explicitly forbidden: to banish their youngest son, the twelve-year-old Catta, to the neighboring island of Baffin for twenty-four hours in an attempt to make a man out of him.

With their elders preoccupied, the Hillsinger and Quick children run wild, playing violent games led by Catta's sadistic older brother James. The island manager Cyrus and the servants tend to the families while preparing for the Migration, a yearly farming ritual that means one thing to their employers, and something very different to them.

Set during three summer days, Estep Nagy's debut novel moves among the communities of Seven as longstanding tensions become tactical face-offs in which everything is fair game for ammunition. Vividly capturing the rift between the cold warriors of Jim's generation and the rebellious seekers of Catta's, We Shall Not All Sleep is a richly told story of American class, family, and manipulation--a compelling portrait of a unique and privileged WASP stronghold on the brink of dissolution.

Visit Estep Nagy's website.

The Page 69 Test: We Shall Not All Sleep.

Writers Read: Estep Nagy.

--Marshal Zeringue

Coffee with a canine: Melissa Scholes Young & Huckleberry Nacho Finn

Featured at Coffee with a Canine: Melissa Scholes Young & Huckleberry Nacho Finn.

The author, on how Huck got his name:

I grew up in Hannibal, Missouri, Mark Twain's boyhood home, so I'm a big literary fan of Twain's. Huck just seemed to be a Huck, but the first time he ate an entire stick of butter off of our table Huckleberry Finn came out of my mouth in a certain tone that Widow Douglass would have used. My youngest daughter added the Nacho part to his name. He mostly goes by Huckanoodles and...[read on]

About Scholes Young's debut novel, Flood, from the publisher:

A sparkling debut set in Mark Twain's boyhood town, Flood is a story of what it means to be lost ... and found.

Laura Brooks fled her hometown of Hannibal, Missouri, ten years ago after a historic flood and personal heartbreak. Now she's returned unannounced, and her family and friends don't know what to make of it. She says she's just home for a brief visit and her high-school reunion, but she's carrying too much luggage for that: literal and metaphorical. Soon Laura is embroiled in small-town affairs—the contentious divorce of her rowdy best friend Rose; the campaign of her twelve-year-old godson, Bobby, to become the town's official Tom Sawyer; and the renewed interest of the man Laura once thought she'd marry, Sammy McGuire.

Leaving town when she was eighteen had been Laura's only option. She feared a stifling existence in a town ruled by its past, its mythological devotion to Mark Twain, and the economic and racial divide that runs as deep as the Mississippi River. She can't forget that fateful Fourth of July when the levees broke or the decisions that still haunt her. Now as the Mississippi rises again, a deep wound threatens to reopen, and Laura must decide if running away once more might be the best way to save herself.

Visit Melissa Scholes Young's website.

Coffee with a Canine: Melissa Scholes Young & Huckleberry Nacho Finn.

--Marshal Zeringue

Kathy Reichs's six best books

Kathy Reichs is a forensic anthropologist and bestselling crime novelist. Her books include Déjà Dead, Cross Bones, and the story collection The Bone Collection, as well as the Virals series for young adults. She created the TV series Bones. One of her six best books, as shared at the Daily Express:

THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS by Thomas Harris

A young FBI agent is asked to interview the serial killer Hannibal Lecter in order to get information to solve a current serial murder case. It’s a great thriller and influenced my decision to write fiction. I liked the use of cryptic clues and forensic science.

Read about another entry on the list.

The Silence of The Lambs is among Matt Suddain's five great meals from literature, Elizabeth Heiter's ten favorite serial killer novels, Jill Boyd's five books with the worst fictional characters to invite to Thanksgiving, Monique Alice's six great fictional evil geniuses, sixteen book-to-movie adaptations that won Academy Awards. Red Dragon appears on Kimberly Turner's list of the ten most disturbing sociopaths in literature and John Mullan's lists of ten of the best dragons in literature and ten of the best tattoos in literature, and the (U.K.) Telegraph 110 best books; Andrew Gross says "it should be taught as [a text] in Thriller 101."

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten top serial killer novels

Elizabeth Heiter likes her suspense to feature strong heroines, chilling villains, psychological twists, and a little bit (or a lot!) of romance. Her research has taken her into the minds of serial killers, through murder investigations, and onto the FBI Academy’s shooting range.

Heiter's newest novel is Seized.

One of the author's ten favorite serial killer novels, as shared at The Strand Magazine:

Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris

Harris took three real-life serial killers and merged them into one to create Buffalo Bill, and then he made the infamous Hannibal Lecter – a serial killer himself – to profile Buffalo Bill. Throw in FBI trainee Clarice Starling, who somehow gets the job of interviewing Lecter, and you have a seriously creepy thriller.

Read about another entry on the list.

The Silence of The Lambs is among Jill Boyd's five books with the worst fictional characters to invite to Thanksgiving, Monique Alice's six great fictional evil geniuses, sixteen book-to-movie adaptations that won Academy Awards. Red Dragon appears on Kimberly Turner's list of the ten most disturbing sociopaths in literature and John Mullan's lists of ten of the best dragons in literature and ten of the best tattoos in literature, and the (U.K.) Telegraph 110 best books; Andre Gross says "it should be taught as [a text] in Thriller 101."

--Marshal Zeringue

Eve MacDonald's "Hannibal: A Hellenistic Life," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: Hannibal: A Hellenistic Life by Eve MacDonald.

The entry begins:

What a movie Hannibal’s life would make. He was brave and fierce and arguably the greatest general of antiquity. A sword and sandals epic comes to mind – part Gladiator, part Alexander the Great – but there was no happy ending to Hannibal’s story, no redemption for him or Carthage.

Against a backdrop of vast landscapes I would start the film at Hannibal’s tomb at Libyssa (near Istanbul today). The tale would be told by a soldier who had fought with Hannibal, one of the many loyal followers whose life was shaped by his encounter with the great man. Then we would turn back in time through Hannibal’s life beginning with childhood at Carthage and moving to Spain, across France and down through Italy via the mighty Alps with elephants. The sets and cities would be magnificent with scenes at Carthage, Rome, the bay of Naples, Etruria and Ephesus.

I have often thought about who should play Hannibal in a film; it would have to be an actor who could convey the right mix of brave soldier and wise, charismatic and inspirational leader. It would have to be someone who could roughly fit the ethnic make-up of the multi-cultural Carthaginians - part Middle Eastern, part Berber - but really anyone from across the Mediterranean basin might fit the bill. There is a certain exoticism to Hannibal so my preference might be for a Spanish actor as Spain was a region deeply influenced by the Carthaginians and key to the story of Hannibal. Javier Bardem would be perfect because I think he could convey the complexity of Hannibal’s character, a man with razor sharp intelligence and a hugely inspirational leader. Another of my favourites for Hannibal would be...[read on]

Learn more about Hannibal: A Hellenistic Life at the Yale University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Hannibal: A Hellenistic Life.

My Book, The Movie: Hannibal: A Hellenistic Life.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Eve MacDonald's "Hannibal: A Hellenistic Life"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Hannibal: A Hellenistic Life by Eve MacDonald.

About the book, from the publisher:

Hannibal lived a life of incredible feats of daring and survival, massive military engagements, and ultimate defeat. A citizen of Carthage and military commander in Punic Spain, he famously marched his war elephants and huge army over the Alps into Rome’s own heartland to fight the Second Punic War. Yet the Romans were the ultimate victors. They eventually captured and destroyed Carthage, and thus it was they who wrote the legend of Hannibal: a brilliant and worthy enemy whose defeat represented military glory for Rome.

In this groundbreaking biography Eve MacDonald expands the memory of Hannibal beyond his military feats and tactics. She considers him in the wider context of the society and vibrant culture of Carthage which shaped him and his family, employing archaeological findings and documentary sources not only from Rome but also the wider Mediterranean world of the third century B.C. MacDonald also analyzes Hannibal’s legend over the millennia, exploring how statuary, Jacobean tragedy, opera, nineteenth-century fiction, and other depictions illuminate the character of one of the most fascinating military personalities in all of history.

Learn more about Hannibal: A Hellenistic Life at the Yale University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Hannibal: A Hellenistic Life.

--Marshal Zeringue

Molly Cochran's "Seduction," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: Seduction by Molly Cochran.

The entry begins:

Who is Gaspard Ulliel?

He's the French hottie who played young Hannibal Lechter in Hannibal Rising, and more recently, the nameless but gorgeous Male Face of Chanel. Temptation personified!

My latest YA novel, Seduction, is all about temptation--or, rather, Temptation, with a capital T. The hapless characters in Seduction--Katy Ainsworth, played in this mental movie by Zooey Deschanel (whom I've always, from the beginning of the series, pictured as Katy), and her erstwhile boyfriend, Peter Shaw (Liam Hemsworth, using his superb, if studied, American accent)--are tempted at every turn by riches, beauty, ambition, knowledge, and even immortality.

From the moment Peter learns that he can make gold from base metal, his life takes a sharp upturn. Living in Paris with a house full of beautiful, if shallow, women who adore him, he is...[read on]

Learn more about the book and author at Molly Cochran's website and blog.

My Book, The Movie: Legacy.

The Page 69 Test: Poison.

Writers Read: Molly Cochran (February 2013).

My Book, The Movie: Seduction.

--Marshal Zeringue

Sixteen book-to-movie adaptations that won Academy Awards

At The Barnes & Noble Book Blog Joel Cunningham tagged sixteen book-to-movie adaptations that won Academy Awards, including:

The Silence of the Lambs (1991)

Jonathan Demme took Thomas Harris’s slick serial killer thriller and made it into art (with big assists from Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins). The only horror film to ever win big at the Oscars, it spawned an entire franchise of movies and films based on the adventures of Hannibal the Cannibal.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Simon Toyne reading?

The current featured contributor at Writers Read: Simon Toyne, author of Sanctus.

The entry begins:

I’m about to set off on a book tour so I’m trying to read the books of the writers I’m about to meet on various panels.

As I write, my wife is packing for a trip to Switzerland where I’ll be on a panel with the UK crime novelist Mark Billingham and I’ve nearly finished Scaredy Cat’ his second book in the Inspector Thorne series. It reminds me a little of Thomas Harris’s Red Dragon in structure – the book that introduced Hannibal Lecter to the world – as it bounces back and forth between a serial killer and the cop trying to catch him. I’m slightly obsessed with...[read on]

Among the early praise for Sanctus:

"When you read Sanctus, you'll see just how frightening, ruthless and relentlessly entertaining an order of monks can be. Haunting in the best way."
—Brad Meltzer, New York Times bestselling author of The Inner Circle

“If a thriller has to be one thing it’s thrilling, and Simon Toyne’s Sanctus is thrilling with bells on….A roller coaster ride through a dark world of conspiracy and betrayal.”
—Paul Christopher, author of The Templar Conspiracy

"Stellar... The [end's] truly mind-boggling revelation will leave astounded readers eager for the next installment."
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"This is a big, bold thriller... Elegantly written and imaginatively plotted, with a smart heroine and an appropriately evil villain, this is a must-read for fans of high-concept thrillers involving grand conspiracies. Yes, it will appeal to Da Vinci Code fans, but the prose is much more textured."
—Booklist (starred review)

"Toyne has written a well-developed, exciting debut, the first volume of a projected trilogy, that doesn't tip off the ending midnovel like so many of its kind. Its "just one more page, one more chapter" urgency keeps you reading into the night, and the final revelation of the Citadel's secret is haunting."
—Library Journal

Learn more about the book and author at Simon Toyne's website, Facebook page, and Twitter perch.

My Book, The Movie: Sanctus.

Writers Read: Simon Toyne.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Will Lavender reading?

The current featured contributor at Writers Read: Will Lavender, author of Dominance.

His entry begins:

I recently picked up Michael Crichton’s Sphere, a book that was recommended to me as “a good beach read.” I wasn’t expecting the book to do what it did. First, let me say that I love scouring used bookstores; I love the veiny-spined book, the lonely book that has been on the shelves for months and months, the book that was popular two decades ago. I like to sort of assume a different persona when I read these novels, imagine that I am living in a different era, the era when this particular book was hot off the presses. The book as time machine.

Like all great books, Sphere is a book that works on a multitude of different levels. What it is, though, is a page-turner. What it isn’t? Mindless entertainment. This book is the literary equivalent of...[read on]

Among the early praise for Dominance:

"[A] taut second standalone.... Full-bodied characters, an effective gothic atmosphere, and a deliciously creepy, unpredictable finale."
—Publishers Weekly

"The Silence of the Lambs meets And Then There Were None... a terrific premise."
—Booklist

"Lavender takes on another puzzle-within-a-thriller... Twisty and turny, with all kinds of side roads ... [He] manages to maintain the novel's taut, sinister atmosphere from the first page to the last... Readers who loved Lavender's first book will doubtless delight in this one."
—Kirkus Reviews

"Lavender's exciting second literary thriller (after Obedience) pulls readers right into the hunt. Aldiss reminds us of a sexy Hannibal Lecter, and the mystery of the reclusive author Paul Fallows and his connection to the class is riveting. Well-drawn characters, excellent plot, good use of flashbacks, and many red herrings will keep the pages turning to the very end."
—Library Journal

Learn more about the author and his work at Will Lavender's website and blog.

Lavender is a graduate of Centre College with an MFA from Bard College. His debut novel, Obedience, was a New York Times and international bestseller. His novels have been sold in 13 countries.

The Page 69 Test: Obedience.

Writers Read: Will Lavender.

--Marshal Zeringue