The Silence of the Lambs (Hannibal Lecter Book 2)

It's all about the Hannibal, but there is a fairly solid story about a FBI hunt to find a serial killer too. Clarice Starling, an eager and talented cadet, gets extracurricular activity when her boss Jack Crawford gets her a VIP meeting with the one and only Hannibal the cannibal Lector, whom Jack Crawford believes has information about the killer named Buffalo Bill. She is led by Lector to breaking and entering into a garage to find a head of Klaus who could be linked somehow to the killer. They find a victim in West Virginia which was drown and a pupa in her throat. Clarice gets help from the Smithsonian to identify the rare black witch moth, a rare species in that region. When the daughter of a senator is taken, the investigation gets complicated as other agencies take part and make it hard for Clarice. Jack and Clarice rush to get Lecter's help while the senator makes her own deal with him for what he might or might not know. Hannibal eventually does his thing, and shows Thomas Harris at his best. There are potential transphobic issues because the Bill killer happens to also desire to transition, but I thought it was covered well (including the dialogue with a medical specialist that adamantly reminds Jack Crawford that transgender people are NOT more violent than regular people). There a group of typo/editing mistakes that stumble the reading towards the end but overall quite the page turner.