A review by librarymouse
The Monster of Florence by Douglas Preston

dark informative mysterious medium-paced

4.5

This was a wild story, start to finish. I love Florence. Getting an intimate look at the Italian and Florentine judiciary systems makes me not want to go to back. However, as Preston points out, the US is just as bad - just in different ways. This is a wild glimpse into the case of the Monster of Florence and life in Florence in the 2000s. Overall, really engaging read, though I did have to put it down for a moment when Spezi's wife nearly incriminated him to the police over the phone and in French. The lack of oversight and excess of power afforded to law enforcement are just fundamentally busted in such an astounding and entertaining way.
The author handles the description of the deaths with tact, making sure to acknowledge their humanity, rather than just discussing them and their deaths as spectacle.
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