There were no effective partitions in his mind. What he saw and learned touched everything else he knew. Some of the combinations were hard to live with.

a stunning work of procedural crime fiction that comes close to being mythological while mostly sidestepping the overblown Americana of, say, Stephen King. all the characters in Red Dragon are professionals, whether they’re killers, cops, scientists, or just darkroom techs. it speaks to Harris’ skill as a writer that it’s always believable, even with supposed super geniuses like Lecter on the page. he's fascinated with process; it feels like a Dashiell Hammett novel at times (high praise). it’s also significantly less sexist than expected (though of course it’s still highly male, all the men are called by their last names while the women are all known by their first names, etc.). the two women who do play a meaningful role are well-written, with internal lives and skills (especially Reba! queen).

one interesting idea that Harris articulates here is that serial killers, basically people engaged in carrying out extreme taboos, are prone to discovering that the limits of human autonomy are not as narrow as is popularly believed. it’s a basic existentialist realization (and not one you need to kill a bunch of women to arrive at) that can still make for cool characterization. I'm very excited to read the next one!