In 1980 Dr. Hannibal Lecter attends an orchestral performance of A Midsummer Night's Dream in Baltimore, Maryland. He is irritated by a flute player who repeatedly misses his part. Later, he hosts a dinner party in his townhouse for the orchestra's board of directors. During conversation, the disappearance of the flute player is brought up. When one of the guests asks about the dish Lecter made, he responds that if he tells her, she might not try it.

Lecter is visited by Will Graham, a gifted FBI agent who has the ability to empathize with psychopaths. Graham has been working with Lecter on a psychological profile of a serial killer. The killer removed edible body parts from his victims, leading Graham to believe him to be a cannibal. During the consultation, Graham discovers evidence implicating Lecter. Lecter immediately attacks Graham with a knife and almost disembowels him, but Graham impales Lecter with several arrows and then empties his handgun into him. Lecter is sentenced to life imprisonment in an institution for the criminally insane. Graham is deeply traumatized by the experience and retires from the FBI.

Six years later, another serial killer, nicknamed The Tooth Fairy, appears. He has stalked and killed two entire families during sequential full moons. Special Agent Jack Crawford seeks a reluctant Graham's assistance in developing the killer's psychological profile. With the death of another family seemingly weeks away on the next full moon, Crawford guilt trips him into agreeing. After visiting the crime scenes and speaking with Crawford, Graham concludes that he must once again consult Lecter.

The Tooth Fairy is Francis Dolarhyde, who kills at the behest of his alternate personality whom he calls "The Great Red Dragon". He is obsessed with the William Blake painting The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed in Sun, and has the painting tattooed on his back. He believes that each victim he "changes" brings him closer to "becoming" the Dragon. His psychopathology was born from the severe abuse he suffered as a child at the hands of his sadistic grandmother.

Meanwhile, Freddy Lounds, a tabloid reporter, who hounded Graham after Lecter's capture, follows him again for leads on The Tooth Fairy. There is a secret correspondence between Lecter and Dolarhyde. Graham's wife and son are endangered when Lecter gives The Tooth Fairy the agent's home address, forcing them to relocate to a farm owned by Crawford's brother. Hoping to lure out The Tooth Fairy, Graham gives Lounds an interview in which he disparages the killer as an impotent homosexual. This provokes Dolarhyde, who kidnaps Lounds and glues him to an antique wheelchair. Dolarhyde forces Lounds to recant his allegations, bites off his lips, and then sets him on fire outside his newspaper's offices.


The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed with the Sun, ca. 1803–1805 Brooklyn Museum
Later, at his job in a St. Louis photo lab, Dolarhyde falls in love with Reba McClane, a blind co-worker. He takes her home, where they make love. However, his alternate personality demands that he kill her. Desperate to stop the Dragon's "possession" of him, Dolarhyde goes to the Brooklyn Museum, tears apart the original Blake painting, and eats it.

Meanwhile, Graham deduces that the killer knew the layout of his victim's houses from their home videos. He concludes that the killer works for the company that edits the home movies and transfers them to video. He starts searching the company processing plant and asks for the workers' personnel files, overheard by Dolarhyde as he returns from Brooklyn. Dolarhyde then leaves the plant unseen and goes to Reba's house.

Dolarhyde finds that she has spent the evening with a co-worker, Ralph Mandy, whom she actually dislikes. Enraged by this apparent betrayal, Dolarhyde kills Ralph, kidnaps Reba, takes her to his house, and then sets it on fire. Finding himself unable to shoot her, Dolarhyde apparently shoots himself. Reba is able to escape the house as the police arrive.

Dolarhyde, having used Ralph's corpse to stage his own death, turns up at Graham's home in Florida. He holds Graham's son hostage, threatening to kill him. To save his son, Graham slings insults at the boy, reminding Dolarhyde of his grandmother's abuse. Enraged, Dolarhyde attacks Graham. Both men are severely wounded in a shootout which ends only when Graham's wife kills Dolarhyde. Graham receives a letter from Lecter which praises him for stopping The Tooth Fairy, bids him well, and says they are going to cross paths soon.

Some time later, Lecter's jailer, Dr. Frederick Chilton, tells him that he has a visitor, a young woman from the FBI. Lecter asks her name.

свернуть