Hannibal Rising

This is a book that needs no introduction. It is a prequel of the beginnings of Hannibal Lector, as a boy. If you've read the previous book Hannibal, there are already glimpses of his childhood and what happened to his sister. So in a sense this current book doesn't tell us anything new, and it is not explicit as to why he started eating people. The adult Hannibal seems to have sprung fully formed, there is no real boyhood transition to adulthood.

There is also a disconnect between the earlier Lector books like Red Dragon and Silence of the Lambs vs Hannibal and Hannibal Rising.

In the earlier books, he is malicious and kills for whimsy, whereas in the later books Thomas Harris has made him into an anti-hero - his killings are justified ie to protect Clarice, or to take revenge on the men who killed his sister. What would be interesting is what happened in the time period after Hannibal Rising, when he starts a new life in America and before he was finally arrested.

It is definitely a must-read if you are a keen fan, but otherwise you can probably wait for the movie.

edit: boing boing thinks more highly of it than me.