Product Description
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 14th 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.
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Amazon.com Review
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
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 Murder Italian Style ( sam_sattler )
When novelist Douglas Preston moved his family to the Florence countryside he expected to immerse himself in the very culture he planned to feature in his next thriller. Early on, however, Preston's research brought him into contact with Mario Spezi, an Italian crime reporter who was expert in the ways of Italian police investigations, and Preston's life was changed forever.
Spezi mentioned that Preston's new home was within a stone's throw of one of the more infamous murder scenes in recent Florence history and that the double murder was almost certainly the work of a serial killer yet to be identified. Spezi, as it turned out, had made his reputation as a journalist by becoming an expert on the murders and was obsessed with finally determining the killer's identity. As the two talked, Preston became more and more taken with Spezi's story and decided to postpone his new thriller until after he and Spezi had written a book together about "The Monster of Florence."
By the time Preston and Spezi teamed up to investigate the crimes for their book, it had been more than ten years since the last murders. The Monster, between 1968 and 1985, had killed seven couples as they made love in their cars or campers while parked in out-of-the-way sites around Florence. In a fashion similar to England's Jack the Ripper, he mutilated the bodies of his female victims, even carrying away body parts as trophies or reminders of his crimes.
Unfortunately for Preston and Spezi, they soon found themselves in conflict with various members of the Italian crime investigation establishment, some of whose members had used the murders to make their reputations and advance their own careers. More than one person had been charged with the murders over the years as diverse theories, ranging from satanic cults to medically trained or aristocratic killers, were trotted out for the benefit of the public. Sadly, according to Preston and Spezi, those responsible for solving the crimes were so anxious to pin them on any likely suspect that they were willing to create evidence as needed, ignore any conflicting real evidence, coerce testimony from known informants, and ruin the lives of anyone who fell into their path if that would help close the case.
Preston and Spezi could hardly believe what they discovered about Italian criminal investigators, prosecutors and judges. Successive investigators built case after case against men who fit their preconceived ideas of how and why the murders occurred. It was all so ludicrous and, most importantly, so corrupt, that the two pushed on with their own investigation long enough to place themselves squarely in opposition to official investigators. As a result, Spezi himself was eventually charged with, and tried for, the very crime he had a spent a lifetime investigating and Preston was threatened with arrest if he ever returned to Italy. Italian authorities knowing how many lives had been ruined and how many reputations built on false investigations greatly feared the publication of Preston and Spezi's book and seem to have charged Spezi with murder mainly in order to suppress it.
"The Monster of Florence" should have been a horrifying and fascinating true crime thriller because of the nature of the crimes, how long they went on, how difficult it has been to identify the killer, and the inept, fraudulent, and almost comical investigation so terribly bungled by Italian authorities. But, because of the dry style in which the book is written (more the style of a newspaper article than a book), even a story filled with as many horrifying elements as this one becomes more boring than thrilling. The second part of the book, in which Preston and Spezi recount what happens when they themselves become suspects rather than reporters moves at a more lively pace but it leads to an ending that likely will disappoint most readers.
The audio version of "The Monster of Florence" is competently read for the most part but one aspect of the audio book quickly grows into a distracting annoyance. Much of the book is written in conversational form encompassing direct quotes from those involved and, although these quotes are naturally reproduced in English rather than in Italian, they are delivered in such an atrocious (and stereotypical) Italian accent that they are sometimes difficult to understand even in English. The result is that every Italian character begins to sound like every other Italian character in a book already filled with names that, for the non-Italian speaker, can already be difficult to distinguish one from the other. This makes listening to the audio version of "The Monster of Florence" into a tedious experience that might possibly be avoided by reading the book the old fashioned way.
Regardless, this one is not quite what it could have been.
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 libraryasst ( 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 the Amanda Knox trial, so I feel for her trying to get a fair trial in a country that seems to be ridiculously inept.
I was traveling and had finished one book and this was the only other one I had along with me, so I "had" to read it! What a dissapointment.
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 When the reporter becomes the story... ( ronripps2 )
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 justice, which is portrayed as corrupt at every level. Driven by the quest for power, fame, or just covering one's butt, the judiciary does not appear to be impressed by "the belief in trhe essential dignity of man" (Thomas Jefferson on justice). The history of Florence in particular and the portrayal of Italy in general make for an interesting read.
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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 Monster of Florence became one of the longest man hunts.
I have to admit that this is the first time I had ever heard about The Monster of Florence. Having said that, from what I heard about the accounts...I thought that Mario Spezi, a former crime correspondent and then newspaper reporter for La Nazione could be credited as one of the most influential people to help bring to light that Italy had a killer on its hands.
Author, Douglas Preston and his family were living in Italy for a while in the year 2000. This is where Mr. Preston first learned about The Monster of Florence as the olive grove behind the place they were living at, was the site of one of the murders. Douglas became intrigued by this information and seeked to learn all he could about this famous killer. Mr. Preston decided to go right to the source that could help him fill in the blanks...Mario Spezi. Together Douglas Preston and Mario Spezi met and set out to finally find the truth about who really was The Monster of Florence. In doing so, Mario Spezi was accused of involvement in the killings; in addition to Mr. Preston being accused of obstruction of justice, planting evidence and even being an accomplish to murder. Because of this, Mr. Preston can no longer return to Italy.
I listened to the audio version of this book. I have to say that while I found the recounting of this true story to be fascinating...if I had been reading the book, I know that I would not be agreeing with what I am saying now. This is due to Dennis Boutsikaris, who brought to life this story for me. I have always found true crime stories to be interesting. I have even tried reading a few of these types of books. I would find myself skimming over some of the parts in the book; because I would find them almost too much detail and it would start to bore me. I know this probably doesn't make much sense. I am happy to comment through I have found a new way to enjoy these books in the form of audio books.
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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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