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Take a “Monster” to the beach
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Usually, “beach books” are paperback novels. Chick lit, thrillers, mysteries, romances, that sort of thing. But the idea is something fun and compelling that isn’t too taxing.
But one of this summer’s hot beach books is non-fiction. “The Monster of Florence” by Douglas Preston and Mario Spezi is No.3 on this Sunday’s New York Times non-fiction bestseller list, and it’s just the kind of book you want to take to the beach, provided you’re not too squeamish.
Preston is an American thriller writer who moved to Italy and met Spezi, a journalist. Spezi was obsessed with a serial killer who was dubbed the Monster of Florence, a man who killed couples who were out parking in the countryside and did some grotesque things to the women’s corpses with a knife. He operated in the 1980s and was never caught; when Thomas Harris was hanging out in Italy researching his novel “Hannibal,” he sniffed around the Monster’s case.
Preston and Spezi tell a story that starts out like your basic true crime non-fiction book. But along the way, as the Monster eludes the police and everyone gets more and more frustrated, the whole narrative switches to political and judicial bungling. Suspects are arrested, even tried and convicted, only to be set free when they are clearly innocent. Increasingly frustrated, some prosecutors actually target the authors, who are showing them up in public, arresting Spezi and trying him in a sequence that would do Kafka proud.
In the end, the Monster is never caught. The authors have theories, but not particularly iron-clad one. Preston acknowledges that the elements don’t really come together to make “Monster” as satisfying as a good novel. “These were murders without motive, theories without evidence, and a story with no end,” he writes. Actually, “The Monster of Florence” works despite those problems. I recommend it.
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