View source for The Monster of Florence by Douglas Preston with Mario Spezi

{{infobox1
|title=The Monster of Florence 
|author=Douglas Preston with Mario Spezi 
|reviewer=Chris Bradshaw 
|genre= True Crime 
|summary=An enlightening and informative investigation into one of Italy's most notorious serial killers.
|rating=4 
|buy=Yes 
|borrow=Yes 
|pages=336
|publisher= Virgin Books
|date=January 2009 
|isbn=9781905264674
|sort=Monster of Florence 
|cover=1905264674
|aznuk=1905264674
|aznus=0446581194
}}

Serial killers are supposedly a North European or American phenomenon. Or so the Italian public thought. A brutal serial killer in the mould of a Jack the Ripper seemed inconceivable. Mafia murders and crimes of passion maybe, but a fiendish, sexually motivated serial killer stalking the streets of a beautiful city like Florence seemed absurd. This made the murders of seven couples - fourteen people in total, over a period of eleven years from 1974 to 1985 all the more shocking for a society unaccustomed to such deviance and brutality.

Having decided to give up the freezing north east of the US in 2000 for the gentler climes of Florence, American crime novelist Douglas Preston discovered that the 14th century farmhouse he and his family now called home overlooked the site of one of the murders committed by the so called Monster of Florence. His interest piqued he befriended local journalist and expert on the Monster murders Mario Spezi. Together they decided that the murders, (all of couples, all in cars and all shot with a .22 Beretta rifle) and the subsequent investigations were ripe for re-examination. 

''The Monster Of Florence'' is the culmination of their research. It recounts the depraved murders themselves, the botched police investigations and the internal politicking amongst the judiciary and police. Most bizarrely, in the midst of their quest for the truth both Preston and Spezi were suspected of involvement in the murders themselves.

There is always a danger in a book recounting brutal crimes that gruesome details and prurient sensationalism get in the way of journalistic detachment. Thankfully Preston knows just where to draw the line. The descriptions of the murders are necessarily detailed but they aren't gratuitous.  What is more interesting is the process of investigation itself.

Italy has a reputation for a chaotic political and judicial culture, something amply illustrated in the attempts to solve the monster case. The investigation moved from one cock up to the next. Unlikely conspiracies abounded. Satanic plots, black masses and devil worship, the more outlandish the claim the more it seemed to be taken seriously. The only thing missing was anything approaching coherent evidence.

Preston stumbled on an array of characters that would have appeared far fetched had they appeared in one of his crime thrillers. There's the aristocratic count Niccolo Capponi, the conspiracy theorist Gabriella Carlizzi, the brutal Sardinian Vinci brothers, dodgy suspects even dodgier witnesses and feuding between prosecutors and police, Carabinieri and judiciary.

Preston puts together the many facets of the case in a clear and concise manner. His prose is lively, and the pace is quick as you would expect for a thriller writer. As a reportage of a brutal series of crimes it is informative and enlightening, as an indictment of the Italian judicial system it is savage.

The cliché goes that truth is stranger than fiction. In this instance you really couldn't have made it up.

I'd like to thank the publishers for sending a copy to The Bookbag.

For another look at a non-fictional serial killer we can recommend [[The Vienna Woods Killer: A Writer's Double Life by John Leake]].  For fiction from Italy in the same period we can recommend [[The House of the Wind by Titania Hardie]].

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