The Monster of Florence: A True Story is a 2008 true crime

True crime

True crime is a non-fiction literary and film genre in which the author examines an actual crime and details the actions of real people.The crimes most commonly include murder, but true crime works have also touched on other legal cases. Depending on the writer, true crime can adhere strictly to...

 book by American thriller writer Douglas Preston

Douglas Preston

Douglas Preston is an American author who has written seventeen popular techno-thriller and horror novels, four alone and the rest with Lincoln Child...

 and Italian journalist Mario Spezi

Mario Spezi

Mario Spezi is an award-winning Italian journalist and author. He wrote the non-fiction, true crime book, The Monster of Florence with American author Douglas Preston...

. It relates to a series of murders

Monster of Florence

The Monster of Florence, also known as Il Mostro, is an epithet commonly used for the perpetrator, or the perpetrators, of 16 murders that took place between 1968 and 1985 in the province of Florence, Italy...

 that occurred between 1968 and 1985 and involved couples who were killed while having sex in their cars in deserted lanes around the city of Florence

Florence

Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....

 in the Italian province of Tuscany

Tuscany

Tuscany is a region in Italy. It has an area of about 23,000 square kilometres and a population of about 3.75 million inhabitants. The regional capital is Florence ....

.

Background

Preston, an author of fiction and non-fiction books, moved to Florence with his family and became interested in the Monster of Florence case because the murders had taken place in the surrounding countryside. Mario Spezi, co-author of the book, is a journalist who specialized in the Monster of Florence case for many years. Preston and Spezi became friends and then collaborated on articles and books about the case. Both became figures in the case when the Italian prosecutors came to suspect them and accuse them of crimes including obstruction of justice

Obstruction of justice

The crime of obstruction of justice, in United States jurisdictions, refers to the crime of interfering with the work of police, investigators, regulatory agencies, prosecutors, or other officials...

 and potentially being accomplice

Accomplice

At law, an accomplice is a person who actively participates in the commission of a crime, even though they take no part in the actual criminal offense. For example, in a bank robbery, the person who points the gun at the teller and asks for the money is guilty of armed robbery...

s to murder. Preston published an article about the case in American magazine The Atlantic in 2006.

Summary

The book recounts the authors' personal experiences while investigating the case and their problems of being accused by the Italian criminal justice system. Preston and Spezi are outspoken critics of the tactics and theories pursued by the Italian police and prosecutors in the Monster of Florence case.

Film version

In late 2008, film studio United Artists

United Artists

United Artists Corporation is an American film studio. The original studio of that name was founded in 1919 by D. W. Griffith, Charles Chaplin, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks....

announced its purchase of the film rights to The Monster of Florence: a True Story.

External links

• Official Site
• The Monster of Florence - Douglas Preston article in The Atlantic, July/August 2006
• The Journalist and the Murderer - Interview with Douglas Preston in The Atlantic, July/August 2006
• The Boston Globe: "Trapped in His Own Thriller"