But superb writing does not guarantee success, nor does it secure the writer a place in the list of all-time greats. Consider then, the wisdom in every scene, his profound insights into the nature of goodness and evil. He plunges right into the action without filling in too much detail, respecting his readers’ intelligence and making us active participants in the story from page one. Harris deals brilliantly with everything from forensic psychology to autopsy scenes, combining science and forensic detection with enviable inventiveness and creative genius. Yet the serial killer thriller remains in wickedly good health, and The Silence of the Lambs has lodged itself in the heart of the popular psyche like no other. I toyed with the idea writing a serial killer thriller myself in the late 90s, but my former agent nixed it: “The serial killer novel is dead,” she said, with a finality which brooked no argument. James Patterson’s Kiss the Girls and Richard Montanari’s Deviant Way both appeared in 1995, and Jeffery Deaver pitched in with The Bone Collector, his first Lincoln Rhyme story, in 1997. First published in 1988, it was swiftly followed in 1990 by Patricia Cornwell’s Postmortem. Thomas Harris’s The Silence of the Lambs has spawned generations of (fictional) serial killers. (From Margaret Murphy, the “write” arm of Ashley Dyer)

The thriller author Ashley Dyer-a partnership between writer Margaret Murphy and forensics expert Helen Pepper-examine Thomas Harris’s seminal serial killer novel, The Silence of the Lambs (1988).

Silence of the lambs novel