34. The Monster of Florence: A True Story by Douglas Preston with Mario Spezi

Category: 50 Books

34. The Monster of Florence: A True Story by Douglas Preston with Mario Spezi

And here we start my True Crime reading binge for the summer.

Douglas Preston is a very well-known mystery/thriller writer. He usually writes with his pal, Lincoln Child. Their books are very popular at our library. So when I saw that Mr. Preston had delved into the true crime genre I requested that our library get this book, and oh, it was such a good read.

True crime books can all be pretty similar, so when I read one that’s a bit different I really like the book even more. This is one of those books, cos not only does it tell about serial murders that did not take place in the United States, but it also involves the author in the investigation.

The serial murders took place in Florence, Italy in the early 1980s. The murders all took place in “lover’s lane” type places. The killer would kill the boy first and then kill the girl and mutilate the girl’s body. Really terrible stuff. Mario Spezi was the crime beat reporter for the newspaper during these murders so he became kind of an expert on these crimes.

In this book you learn not only of the murders but of how the Italian legal system “works”. It’s a bit different than here in the U.S. because they can imprison a suspect for as long as they want. So they’d find a suspect and hold him for months until another murder would happen and they’d have to let that suspect go because obviously he couldn’t kill couples from prison. This happened a lot with suspects.

Some of the main investigators/prosecutors used these crimes to benefit themselves to gain better jobs and appointments. Reading about the Italian legal system made me sick. I forget how amazing the whole “innocent until proven guilty” thing actually is. It got so bad that while Spezi and Preston were researching and interviewing for this book that they kind of do their own investigation (and halfway through the book i was all, “what about that kid? i bet it was him.” and then towards the end when they’re doing their own investigating and their all, “hey, it’s that kid.” i was all, “ha! i knew it!”) they both get in serious trouble when the Italian police claim that the two authors planted evidence. Of course the police have no proof at all of any evidence being planted anywhere, but Preston gets into serious trouble and is forced to leave Italy while Spezi is imprisoned.

What’s so scary to me is that they are called up on these charges by the police guy who is also writing a book on the Monster of Florence only he’s looking at it from “a satanic cult is doing the murders” perspective. While Douglas and Preston are going at it from “the Sardinian Trail” perspective, which is about this gang of Sardinians who came over to Florence at this time and one of them had the murder weapon (a .22 Beretta that was used to kill one of the Sardinian’s wives. the gun is then ‘stolen’ and used in the Monster killings). So obviously, which one makes more sense? a strange cult or a serial killer? Yeah, exactly. So that police guy (with the help of some crazy, consiracy theory nutbag lady with a website) uses his influence to shut down Preston and Spezi.

Preston then gets as many human rights/journalist rights groups as he can to fight for Spezi to get him out of prison.  Amazingly the Italian judges overturn the local judges who wrongfully imprisoned Spezi.

I just thought it was incredible that the authors themselves end up getting involved in the investigation.
And still the Monster has not been caught. What’s also intersting is that Thomas Harris borrowed some of his Hannibal ideas from the Montser killings.

I’d recommend this book to anyone who likes true crime and maybe for those who haven’t gotten into the true crime thing but want to try it, because this book reads like a story and moves at a very fast pace. It gets 0 Cansecos, no wait, it gets 1 Canseco because it didn’t list any sources or notes in the back and I thought that was kinda lousy. I mean, how can you get away with writing a nonfiction book and not give a bibliography? I realize that Spezi was probably Preston’s  greatest source, but still. Lazy!

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