Douglas Preston - The Monster of Florence

Pros: A truly chilling tale of murder and corruption.
Cons: It's a real expose of very incompetent justice.

Recently, I seem to be reading a lot of books centered in and around the Italian city of Florence, treasured for centuries as the birthplace of the Renaissance. Everywhere there is art to behold, from paintings, sculpture and to architecture, and ...

Pros: not merely a salacious recounting of a horrifying set of murders
Cons: Adult material, not salacious, circumstances regarding a brutal serial killer - NOT for young readers

Written in two parts, The Monster of Florence is not a story or narrative centered on the brutal serial murders or the murderer himself. It is the true account of two men drawn into the mystery of the brutal serial murders and the monster who ...

Pros: Well written, fascinating tale of a serial killer and its more bizarre investigation.
Cons: Some of the graphic details made me a bit sick!

Florence. The very name means flourishing. It was and is a center of art, history and culture. The city is beautiful, sophisticated and romantic.Yet...   even here, a monster lurked waiting for his prey.  In the US, we all know ...

Pros: Lots of details and background material
Cons: Gets slow in places

The Monster of Florence is divided into two parts. The first part is based on Mario Spezi’s experiences and the second is after Douglas Preston meets Mr. Spezi. Mr. Spezi is a journalist in Florence. On June 7th, 1981, he is working at the ...

Pros: At the heart of the book is a compelling series of events.
Cons: too many non-essential details

Think about it: how in the world would you feel if you'd just moved to a new country and discovered that the house you're living in with your young family is adjacent to a murder site? Worse, that the murders were connected to a serial killer? Worst, ...

Pros: A true, weird, horrific, and infuriating story about murder and incompetence.
Cons: Italian Keystone cops and prosecutors.

When police and prosecutors start throwing around charges of Satanism, ritual killings, and pedophilia, it is a sure sign you've entered into legal crazy land (Charles Manson and author Thomas Harris excluded).

Douglas Preston and Mario Spezi encountered such a whacko environment as they wrote The Monster of Florence (2008, Grand Central Publishing), the true story about a serial killer loose in Florence, Italy, the birthplace of the Renaissance. The Monster is suspected of killing 16 people over an 18-year period in very horrific fashion.

Their investigation takes them down a rabbit hole of hysteria reminiscent of the kind that struck America in the 1980s surrounding children's day care centers and alleged ritual abuse linked to Satanism and the dark arts.

In Italy, this kind of fantasical hysteria seems to be a common occurrence. Prosecutors and police make wild allegations, smear people, stage show trials, and convict them (hopefully). They let the appeal process deal with the aftermath. The result (as the authors suggest) is one of many lives in ruin, innocent people in jail, and a killer free to kill again.

The Monster of Florence is a riveting account of the murders and the hysteria that follows (four stars). Read it.