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While writing a column about Italian brunch I remembered that I had an unread copy of The Monster of Florence, so I opened it and promptly ruined a good night’s sleep. Bad idea to start reading a true story about a serial killer who kills couples making out in parked cars—and then cuts out the woman’s vagina—at 11 pm.

The Monster of Florence murdered 16 people between 1968 and 1985, and according to authors Douglas Preston and Mario Spezi, he’s still out there. Three people were arrested and convicted as the Monster, but their convictions were based on testimony that was probably manufactured, given by witnesses who were mostly unreliable, to support wacko conspiracy theories pushed by prosecutors and judges who leveraged the very high-profile case into plum official positions for themselves. Evidence that did not support the conspiracy theory (A Satanic cult hired the killers to murder couples and steal the vaginas for their black masses!) was thrown out, and a profile requested from FBI’s famous Behavioral Science Unit completely ignored.

At one point journalist Mario Spezi, who had covered the Monster from the beginning and knows more about the case than anyone besides the serial killer himself, was arrested for obstruction of justice. So the book is actually two horror stories: the bloody crimes of a serial killer, and the Stygian labyrinth of the criminal justice system.

The man whom Preston and Spezi believe is the real Monster was never tried. He continues to maintain his innocence. He is now in his early 50s (The authors say he did not commit the 1968 murders but he started while he was still in his teens). In interviews he seemed less bothered by the suspicion that he was the Monster than by the implication that he was sexually impotent.

According to Preston (who also writes a bestselling series of crime novels with Lincoln Child featuring FBI Agent Pendergrast), the Monster investigation provided Thomas Harris with a lot of material for Hannibal, his sequel to The Silence of the Lambs. (Apparently there is a whole Monster subplot in the book that was not included in the film.) For instance, Sardinians were among the initial suspects, and Sardinian clans were known to engage in kidnapping for ransom. In one case the ransom wasn’t paid, so the victim was fed to man-eating pigs. Like the Gary Oldman character in Ridley Scott’s film adaptation. (There are also man-eating pigs in Deadwood.)

Ridley Scott himself has a cameo in the Monster story—a tape of the Blade Runner soundtrack by Vangelis was playing in a van where two of the victims were killed. (Which Filipino classic movie features music by Vangelis? Temptation Island! Walang tubig, walang pagkain, magsayaw na lang tayo.)

Thomas Harris also borrows from Florentine history—the policeman played by Giancarlo Giannini in the film is a descendant of the Pazzi who tried to assassinate Lorenzo de Medici. The historical Pazzi’s gory end was similar to his fictional descendant’s. Harris had asked the noble Capponi family if it would be all right to make Dr. Hannibal Lecter the curator of the Capponi archive. The Capponi family agreed, as long as the family would not be the main course.