I know this one’s an oldie (and it’s also one I read before) but I have to praise the novel Red Dragon by Thomas Harris.

Put it this way. Yesterday evening, I finished reading Firestarter by Stephen King. It’s one I hadn’t read before, and that’s also a book I’d recommend. It reads a lot like The Dark Half (written about the same time period too). For one thing, it’s Stephen King condensed. I was reading scenes going, “If he wrote this now, it would be ten times longer.” Not necessarily a bad thing, but for Firestarter the fast paced writing was a better choice.

Anyway, this post is not about Firestarter! Because when I finished it around 7 o’clock or so, I was still in a reading mood and was thinking, What should I read now? And I saw Red Dragon and remembered that it was a good novel, so I decided Why not? The first chapter was a little clunky and I thought maybe I made a mistake, especially when the second chapter wasn’t that much better. But then the third chapter hit and suddenly I was at chapter 28.

Now I should point out that I don’t have a clock in my reading room/video game playing room/guitar playing room. I knew it had been dark outside for some time, so I thought, “Great, it’s after midnight and I have to work in the morning.” So I put the book down and went to my bedroom…and saw it was only 10:30! I tought, “Hey, I can read for another hour and a half!” So I went back to the R/VGP/GP room and picked up the book.

I finished it at 12:36 in the morning. Went a half hour over my “bedtime” but I couldn’t put it down when I was that close to the end.

In other words, I read the entire novel last night. It was literally a “you can’t put this down” book. Oh, there were a few slow spots, but by then the hook was in and you could plow through them. Even though I knew the ending (I read it about five or ten years ago), it was still suspenseful.

It’s a shame that Thomas Harris had to go and ruin his streak of great books by penning Hannible. :-( But if you like suspense (think James Patterson, only with longer chapters!), Red Dragon is awesome. So is Silence of the Lambs for that matter (and there are some minor repetitions between the two works).

The only drawback is that now I need to find another book to read when I get home tonight…unless I’m in a writing mood instead of a reading mood :-)