The novel chronicles Lecter's early life, from birth into an aristocratic family in Lithuania in 1933, to being orphaned, along with his beloved little sister Mischa, in 1941 when invading German and Soviet forces storm the family estate. Shortly thereafter, Lecter and Mischa are captured by a band of Vichy, who murder and cannibalize Mischa before her brother's eyes. Lecter is so traumatized that he is rendered temporarily mute and later becomes fixated on cannibalism. Lecter escapes from the deserters and takes up residence in an orphanage (where he was bullied by the other children as well as abused by the dean) until he is adopted when he was sixteen by his uncle Robert and his Japanese wife, Lady Murasaki. As Lecter grows into a young man, he forms a close, pseudo-romantic relationship with the widowed Murasaki and shows great intellectual aptitude, entering medical school at a young age. During this period, he is tutored in the Japanese martial art of kenjutsu by Murasaki, who descended from a house of Hiroshima Samurai. Despite his seemingly comfortable life, Lecter is consumed by a savage obsession with avenging Mischa's death.