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The Monster of Florence

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Editorial Review:

In the nonfiction tradition of John Berendt ("Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil") and Erik Larson ("The Devil in the White City"), New York Times bestselling author Douglas Preston presents a gripping account of crime and punishment in the lush hills surrounding Florence, Italy.
In 2000, Douglas Preston fulfilled a dream to move his family to Italy. Then he discovered that the olive grove in front of their 14^th century farmhouse had been the scene of the most infamous double-murders in Italian history, committed by a serial killer known as the Monster of Florence. Preston, intrigued, meets Italian investigative journalist Mario Spezi to learn more. This is the true story of their search for--and identification of--the man they believe committed the crimes, and their chilling interview with him. And then, in a strange twist of fate, Preston and Spezi themselves become targets of the police investigation. Preston has his phone tapped, is interrogated, and told to leave the country. Spezi fares worse: he is thrown into Italy's grim Capanne prison, accused of being the Monster of Florence himself. Like one of Preston's thrillers, The Monster Of Florence, tells a remarkable and harrowing story involving murder, mutilation, and suicide-and at the center of it, Preston and Spezi, caught in a bizarre prosecutorial vendetta.

Amazon Best of the Month, June 2008: When author Douglas Preston moved his family to Florence he never expected he would soon become obsessed and entwined in a horrific crime story whose true-life details rivaled the plots of his own bestselling thrillers. While researching his next book, Preston met Mario Spezi, an Italian journalist who told him about the Monster of Florence, Italy's answer to Jack the Ripper, a terror who stalked lovers' lanes in the Italian countryside. The killer would strike at the most intimate time, leaving mutilated corpses in his bloody wake over a period from 1968 to 1985. One of these crimes had taken place in an olive grove on the property of Preston's new home. That was enough for him to join "Monsterologist" Spezi on a quest to name the killer, or killers, and bring closure to these unsolved crimes. Local theories and accusations flourished: the killer was a cuckolded husband; a local aristocrat; a physician or butcher, someone well-versed with knives; a satanic cult. Thomas Harris even dipped into "Monster" lore for some of Hannibal Lecter's more Grand Guignol moments in Hannibal. Add to this a paranoid police force more concerned with saving face and naming a suspect (any suspect) than with assessing the often conflicting evidence on hand, and an unbelievable twist that finds both authors charged with obstructing justice, with Spezi jailed on suspicion of being the Monster himself. The Monster of Florence is split into two sections: the first half is Spezi's story, with the latter bringing in Preston's updated involvement on the case. Together these two parts create a dark and fascinating descent into a landscape of horror that deserves to be shelved between In Cold Blood and Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. --Brad Thomas Parsons

Customer Reviews:

• Avg. Customer Rating: 4.0 / 5.0

• libraryasst
  I loved Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil and Devil in the White City, along with Ann Rule and other true crime tales. I did not love Monster of Florence.
  Not only do you have the dissatisfaction of the unresovled nature of these gruesome murders, but you have the disjointed style of dual authors, separate tales and so much time and attention given to obviously unrelated crimes and theories.
  It sounds like the Italian legal system is going to have another go at that satanic cult theory with... more info

• When the reporter becomes the story...
  This book was written as a documentary rather than a novel. Consequently the characters were not well developed- not any moreso than a reporter might flesh out the players in a crime under investigation. There was more "telling" than allowing actions and words to bring the characters to life. Although the story of the Monster is intriguing on its own, the story of the reporters Spezi and Preston becomes the more compelling plot. This is not a very complimentary piece with respect to the Italian system of... more info

• Review
  
  The Monster of Florence is based on a true story. The story is surrounding numerous killing that took place in Florence, Italy that transpired in the late seventies and early eighties. The killer was dubbed "The Monster of Florence". By the time the year 1984 had rolled around, the Monster was the most talked about killer in the world. Around the same time, the killer had already killed about seven couples that the police knew about anyways. The killings went on for many years. The search for the... more info

• awful waste of time
  kept hoping it would improve but NO ... one of the worst books i ever read ... boring, repetitious ... a waste of time. too bad because it is an interesting subject.

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