In an interview on Crime Fiction

Many of us will have seen the chilling film Silence of the Lambs, starring Anthony Hopkins and Jodie Foster – but do you think it is still worth reading the book?

Yes, absolutely. If you want to be a crime writer it is one of the books that you absolutely have to read. It has been one of the most successful, if not the most successful, crime novel of the 20th century. You could argue that The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is as well, but I think this book is infinitely superior.

Why?

Because it is a far better researched book that works on many different levels. One of the things it does, in a way that Stieg Larsson doesn’t, is to love all its characters. In Hannibal Lecter you have this appalling monster and yet you have a sneaking admiration for him. There is this idea of setting a monster to catch a monster.

And there is his relationship with Clarice.

Yes, there is a sexual frisson there, as well as him wanting to help her. I read this book for the first time in a hotel in Thailand and I was so bloody scared I had to sleep with the light on! The book is infinitely scarier than the film. Buffalo Bill is actually based on a real character, and where the author has been so clever is that he hasn’t made him one-dimensional. He has got his pet poodle – something he loves. So you think that if anyone loves something they can’t be all bad. It is an absolutely gripping thriller. My friend James Herbert sent me an early reading copy of it in 1988 and he rang me and said, “I am sending you this reading copy, you have got to read it.” And I read it over the next couple of days and put it down and thought, “That is a book I wish I had written!”