"Hannibal Rising"

Hannibal "the Cannibal" Lecter is back. Or he will be back this coming Christmas season. (Forget the fava beans and chianti: break out the cranberry sauce and egg nog.)

The New York Times reports:

In a last-minute addition to its holiday-season list, Delacorte Press, an imprint of the Bantam Dell Publishing Group, is expected to announce today that it will publish “Hannibal Rising” on Dec. 5. The 356-page novel chronicles the early life of Dr. Lecter.
....
Close readers of Mr. Harris’s previous novels, which also include “The Silence of the Lambs” and “Red Dragon,” may recall that Dr. Lecter saw his entire family killed during World War II in Eastern Europe. The new novel, which covers the young Hannibal from age 6 through 20, will shed more light on the circumstances of those deaths, with a focus on Dr. Lecter’s memories of his younger sister, Mischa.

The film version, Young Hannibal: Behind the Mask, is due to be released in early 2007.

--Marshal Zeringue