I had to DNF this book. It was messy and I just couldnt engage with the writing or the narrative and characters at all. Such a shame as I had high hopes!

Unfortunately, I really didn't enjoy this one. I requested Cari Mora because I was such a big fan the Hannibal Lector series, so it might be my fault for having expectations going in. The other issue is that outside of Breaking Bad and Ozark, I don't enjoy cartel stories so, again, I am probably not the targeted audience for this one.

I hadn’t read any of Harris’s work for a long time but I remembered how much I enjoyed his writing style as I eagerly turned the pages this is not perhaps his best but I enjoyed it a lot.

Great thriller that kept me turning the pages. Great story, great writing and characters. Really enjoyable and would read this author again.

What happend? Thomas Harris usually writes amazing books with great storylines and characters but this was terrible so I am sorry I can only give this 1 star as I didn't even finish it. So disappointed

I felt from the beginning of this story that there should have been a book before it all about Cari Mora. Cari Mora is the star of the show here where I enjoyed her life story more than the actual story that I should have been focusing on in the book.
Hiding in plain sight, Cari Mora is the caretaker of a huge mansion, that had been owned by an unsavoury character and rumoured to have billions of dollars hidden inside it. When a film crew arrive, after renting the property they bring with them more than cameras.
As with any Thomas Harris book, the evil guy is pretty diverse as is his buddy and they both have their eye on Cari, a beautiful woman they hatch plans for.
Unfortunately, the story lacked that scary element that still haunts me from the Hannibal days but how ever do you top that? I think I was expecting too much. There are murders, there is torture and there is an element of did that just happen moments but I always knew the ending, it didn’t shock.
The location descriptions are detailed but the characters lacked realism. Such a shame, I so wanted to find a new bad guy to make me want to keep the lights on.
I wish to thank the publisher and NetGalley for an e-copy of this book which I have reviewed honestly.

Dreadful! kept thinking that it was going to get better but it didn’t. Is this really the same Thomas Harris who gave us Hannibal Lecter? Silence of the Lambs was gory but it fitted in with the excellent storyline. This was just violent and gory with no supporting storyline. The only reason I finished this book was because I made a commitment to Netgalley to read it and give my opinion.

Cari Mora is living in Miami, trying to escape the nightmare of her childhood, spent as a child soldier with the FARC in Colombia. When rival gangs discover the house she’s caretaker of contains a stash of gold bullion, she needs to keep one step ahead to stay safe.

One guarantee of a Thomas Harris novel is someone with a strange death fetish, and Cari Mora is no exception. As soon as Hans-Peter is revealed to have a liquid cremation machine in his home, where he can watch his victims slowly dissolve before flushing them away, you know you’re in for a treat. The interplay between the various factions can get complicated at times, with so many different characters that I struggled to remember who was on who’s side, but overall a very enjoyable, if at times slightly gruesome, story. The ending, while not a total surprise, did keep me guessing as to how it would play out, not predictable as some books can be.

Another masterpiece from a good writer.

The author, Thomas Harris, is obviously famous for writing the series of books about Hannibal Lecter. Everyone knows the character even if they haven't read any of the books, from TV or films. I have read at least a couple of his earlier books and was very excited to learn he had written something new.

When I first picked up the book (or my kindle, to be more accurate) I imagined it to be about some secret order or something similar. The title Cari Mora conjures images for me of Vatican City or a jungle with hooded men stood in a circle in the dead of night. In fact, none of that is anywhere near reality!

Cari Mora is a woman. She is beautiful, and clever, and has hidden skills thanks to her turbulent past. Cari works in a house in Miami which was previously owned by Pablo Escobar. Nowadays the house is used mainly by film crews who rent the house to shoot scenes using the unusual memorabilia that fills the house. However, it has long been rumoured that Pablo hid a large amount of gold somewhere in the house, and there are people who would like to find it. Cari doesn't want to be involved in any trouble, she only has temporary status in the USA and cannot risk anything happening to jeopardise that. She will have to do what she can to protect herself.

I think it's often forgotten how skilled Thomas Harris is as a writer. He writes plainly, but can easily cojure images of fear and send a shiver down your spine. He has the ability to make characters wonderfully twisted. I really don't know where he gets his ideas from, but I think I'm glad I don't know because I would not want to imagine such things. He also manages to create heroes with their own darkness and also immense strength to face everything he throws at them in his books. By the end of the book I was side by side with Cari and I felt like I knew her and what she had been through. That's a rare skill to have as an author but Harris definitely has it.

The story is fairly simple in Cari Mora, and focuses more on the interactions between the characters. They all have their own motivations and also a private life they wish to keep separate from the other characters and the main plot of the story. I like the fact that it takes place in Pablo Escobar's house, having seen and read a few things about that character and finding him a very interesting character. I think it's clever how the author has taken a real life story and used it almost as a starting point for his own fictional story. It works really well and doesn't rely on Pablo's story at all, he isn't mentioned much other than the house and gold which are integral to the book.

I devoured this book in a couple of days, and I positively raced through the ending. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who is a thriller fan, and particularly if you like them a little bit on the "wrong" side!

Thanks to Random House UK, Cornerstone and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Novels by Thomas Harris are rarer than hen's teeth. Having loved Harris' Hannibal Lecter series, I was expecting more of the same. Apart from the eponymous and intriguing Cari Mora, however, a strong, well-drawn character in the same mould as Lecter and Starling, the comparisons end there. Make no mistake, this is still a good read, just not a great one. Harris has a lot to live up to with the success of the Lecter books, and this one just misses the mark. Some aspects of the book were highly engaging. The plot, on the whole, which involved a .drug cartel attempting to retrieve a twenty-five million dollars bounty from beneath a Miami mansion, was well thought out. But such a novel, which resembles a closed-door mystery, rely on strong, three-dimensional characters to elevate it above your ordinary cat and mouse caper. Yet, apart from the glorious Cari Mora, the main characters - Mora's antagonists - were a little one-dimensional. Lacking also, was the injection of adrenaline I would expect from such a tale. The dialogue, too, was a little forced at time and clunky. So, though enjoyable for a bit of escapism, it didn't resonate with me in the way I expected.

Set in the ever dangerous and criminal world of Miami., we meet Cari Mora a house sitter for the rich,. Unbeknownst to her, one house could contain a lost cartel fortune. Unfortunately for the criminals who want the gold, they don’t realise she not your ordinary house sitter..
Thomas Harris doesn’t release many books but when he does they are always solid gold and this doesn’t disappoint. The book is beautifully written with wonderful twists and turns. I thought it was exceptional.

I don’t know if my experience with this book was different because of my lack of history with the author, but I found this book to be an okay read. Mind-blowing and unputdownable? No. Interesting enough to keep me reading? Yes. Did I understand any of the Spanish? No, and it felt like I was watching a movie that has foreign language conversations without English subtitles; I kind of get what’s going on, but I kind of don’t. Could it have been shorter, perhaps even a screenplay instead? Yes. It seems that you need to enter at your own risk with this one - take a chance and see how you go!

As a fan of The Silence of the Lambs, I was very excited to read Cari Mora. I enjoyed some of the characters (Cari Mora's backstory was quite interesting, the contrast between the ruthless child soldier and the caring woman who can show empathy was well presented) but I found the plot a bit lacking. It was not quite the page-turner I was hoping for but it was an interesting read nonetheless.

Cari is the caretaker of a property in Biscayne Bay, Miami whose previous owner was Pablo Escobar. It’s been empty a while though is leased to film companies but it could be yours if you’ve got a cool $27 million in your back pocket. What makes the house even more valuable is that it’s reputed to contain a hidden stash of gold left there by one of Escobar's minions. There’s a race to acquire it by the Ten Bells organisation of Don Ernesto Ibarra (Don Teflon) and a rival group led by psychotic Paraguayan Hans-Peter Schneider. The rivals will stop at nothing to prevent the other from succeeding in the race for gold.

One of the positives of the book is the character of Cari who is totally underestimated by Schneider who has nefarious plans for her. What he doesn’t know is that Cari was conscripted into the paramilitary group FARC in Colombia as one of their child soldiers. Like many of those poor children she grew up the hard way and through it she developed survival skills and is more than capable of using what she learned. She is fazed by very little. The premise of the novel is good, the setting on the Miami waterfront provides an interesting backdrop too. There are parts of the story that are quite exciting and it’s certainly gritty in places.

However, following a quickening of the pace there will then be a section that is plodding, a bit sedentary and your interest wanes. There are so many interruptions to include detail that is unnecessary and somewhat mundane. There are so many characters to work out that it makes your heard spin and ache with the effort! Hans-Peter should have made your flesh crawl but he didn’t give me the shivers like Hannibal Lecter did. Some of his dialogue and expressions made him look ridiculous so his evil deeds get reduced in impact.

Overall, I certainly didn’t hate it but neither did I love it. It’s a quick read but it’s uneven pace, convoluted plot, over burdened characters made a really good premise result in a middle of the road book. Cari is the shining light of the novel and I would really like to see her feature in a follow up but hopefully one that does the potential of her character justice.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Random House for a copy of the book in return for an honest review.

Thank you to Netgalley for the free copy in exchange for an honest review. I have tried my hardest not to compare this too closely with the Hannibal series despite sourcing back to the same author but all the same I find my mouth parched for more in this good (but not great) novel.

Cari Mora is a really interesting character I want to know more about and Harris maintains the trend of intriguing villains here, too. The rest of the characters are bland to me and the first half of the book hard to follow. The story definitely picks up after that but lacks the same cat-and-mouse dynamic I loved in Hannibal Lecter and Clarice Starling. Some really gory moments I was a fan of and definitely markers of Thomas Harris’ writing, just not as fully realised as I would like.

I’m afraid that I wouldn’t believe this was by the same author as silence of the lambs and red dragon; it’s a second rate thriller with a third rate villain. Clunky phrasing, unbelievable characters, and unconvincing twists. A major disappointment, and I’m afraid I can’t say much more than that.

When I got this ARC I said "WOW, Thomas Harris" and was prepared to read a terrifying, gritty and exciting book.
I had high expectations and unfortunately I was disappointed.
It's not a bad thriller but I found it a bit boring.
The villain si so over the top so I found him funny and not terrifying. Cari Mora is more interesting but it reminded me of a lot of other kick-ass heroine.
There were some moments when Mr Harris seems to remember how he wrote the Silence of the Lambs and you start hoping. It doesn't last and you go back to usual tran tran.
I have to admit that I like the crocodile but I was quite bored on the whole.
Not my cup of tea.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine.

Cari Mora is the new novel from Thomas Harris. Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal, Red Dragon. A stellar list of block busting books , movies and tv shows.

Then there is Cari Mora. A surprisingly average novel that in all honesty was a struggle.

Ive never read the books as stated above, so I can’t base this review against his others. What I can say though is I went into this with an element of intrigue and came out the other side extremely disappointed with this disjointed kind of heist thriller.

The bad guys are suitably nasty, the action is there and it’s paced quickly it just never catches on for me.

There’s violence and nasty killings as you would expect but all in all it’s all a bit of a let down and a bit of a damp squib from me

The writing is accomplished as you would expect from such an author but this relatively short novel misses its mark in several ways.

2🔥🔥

I went into Thomas Harris's latest novel, Cari Mora, with no expectations, and found that I really enjoyed reading it. Set in Miami, Florida, a multi-million mansion home on Biscayne Bay used to belong to criminal drug lord, Pablo Escobar, and according to the now dying Jesus Villareal, buried in the basement is 25 million dollars of cartel gold, sought by the monstrously evil and depraved Hans-Peter Schneider, a human trafficking, organ harvesting psychopath, with a business fulfilling the desires of deranged rich men. A Columbian mob boss, Don Ernesto Ibarra, known by the tabloids as Don Teflon, has his eyes on the gold too, with Benito, the gardener, ex-marine Antonio and Captain Marco working for him.

The beautiful Cari Mora with her scars on her arms, accompanied by her rather vocal cockatoo, works a multitude of jobs, one of which is as caretaker of Escobar's mansion, now rented out by Felix the agent to Schneider, in the guise of making a horror movie. The moment Schneider eyes Cari, he has nefarious plans for her, plans that become a obsession for him. What he is unaware of is that Cari is a survivor, she was taken to become a child soldier for FARC in Columbia, to eventually end up in Miami, with dreams of being a veterinarian with her love of birds and animals, but hampered by her Temporary Protected Status and fear of ICE. She knows she is in danger on meeting Schneider, and his motley crew, refusing to stay at the mansion, despite the pressure being put on her to do so by Felix. When Miami Dade Homicide cop, DS Terry Robles warns her Schneider is coming for her, he asks her to help them catch him.

I think for readers who go into this novel with expectations of another Red Dragon or The Silence of the Lambs, disappointment beckons. I really liked the character of Cari, fulfilling family care responsibilities, desiring her own home and wanting to be free to become a vet, she just needs to find the opportunities and money to attain her dreams. The serpent in her Florida paradise, threatening to take her and ruin her life is Schneider, culminating in Cari's ultimate fight for her survival. This is an enjoyable and entertaining read, of greed, violence, horror and brutality, likely to be appreciated by those readers who do not expect Harris to present them with similar storytelling from his past canon. Many thanks to Random House Cornerstone for an ARC.

Cari Mora is not afraid, not anymore. Having been kidnapped as a kid and trained to become a child soldier for Colombia’s FARC, she knows how to survive even the most dangerous situations. She can read people, use weapons of all kinds and she knows that in order not to be killed, she at times needs to shoot others first. She has established a quiet life in Miami, always under the radar since she does not possess the necessary papers. When Hans-Peter Schneider and his crew appear, things become complicated. A war of gangs breaks out, sadist Schneider as well as his opponent Don Ernesto want to dig out some gold barrels which are supposed to be deposited in a house which formerly belonged to Pablo Escobar, leader of the famous Medellin Cartel. Cari soon find herself between the front lines.

It took Tomas Harris thirteen years after his last instalment of the Hannibal Lecter series to come up with a new novel. Having totally adored “Red Dragon” and “The Silence of the Lambs” and its successors, I was eager to read this novel. Even though the topic is completely different, I expected some cruel thrill and highly complex characters. Yet, my expectations were not really met and for the rating, it only ranges somewhere between three and four stars.

There were some aspects I found really interesting to read. Cari Mora’s backstory as a child soldier was exciting and appalling at the same time and Harris integrated this part quite well into the actual plot line. She certainly is some noteworthy character and the conflicting traits - on the one hand, the ruthless child who learnt how to kill, on the other hand, the caring woman and her way of treating plants and animals which shows her high capacity of empathy – make her a strong protagonist.

However, the main topic is the fight between the two gangs which is, unfortunately, very poorly narrated. Even though Schneider first appears to be a fascinating character with his tendency to torture, this is not really developed further. Thus, the gang fight remains on the highly superficial “we shoot some of you, then you react in the same way” level. This is a bit uninspired and maybe works better in film than in a book.

It is easy to recognise Thomas Harris’ hand in the novel, but he surely can do a lot better than that.