Hannibal Rising introduces us to eight-year-old Hannibal Lecter, wide-eyed and innocent; a brother to his younger sister Mischa, and a devoted son to his Lithuanian count father and Italian aristocrat mother. But when their loving home is bombed by the Germans in 1945, killing their parents, Hannibal and Mischa are left to fend for themselves.

In the aftermath, Hannibal witnesses an unspeakable act of cruelty that will haunt him forever. Traumatized and orphaned, Lecter finds care in the home of his uncle and aunt, but vengeance consumes his thoughts. A brutal tale filled with violence and beauty, Hannibal Rising is a story of innocence lost and how insufferable tragedy begets depraved monsters.