The Silence of the Lambs

Some books make the room feel smaller without rattling a single window. In Thomas Harris’s The Silence of the Lambs, FBI trainee Clarice Starling is working to solve the case of a serial killer known as Buffalo Bill. She is pitted against Dr Hannibal Lecter, a brilliant psychiatrist and a killer himself. That is as far into the set-up as I am taking you. The rest can stay behind the door.

The fear here is human and psychological. There is a killer to find, but Lecter brings another kind of dread: the thought of facing someone clever enough to be frightening before he does anything at all. No ghost needs to knock over a lamp. People are quite capable of making a quiet room uncomfortable on their own, which feels frankly unnecessary of them.

I would pick this for a quiet night when you want a crime story with a strong sense of unease, rather than a cosy little fright you can laugh off at bedtime. Give it your attention and keep the interruptions to a minimum. It is the best-known part of Harris’s Lecter series, and I can see why this particular set-up stays with people. For me, the scare level is a four: the danger feels close because it comes from other people.