THE MONSTER OF FLORENCE.

Douglas Preston with Mario Spezi. Grand Central. 317 pages. $25.99.

This gripping collaboration between a bestselling American author and an Italian journalist is a most unconventional thriller, a real-life murder mystery in which they become suspects.

As they attempt to solve notorious serial killings of 16 people between 1968 and 1985, the men are caught up in a tense, high-stakes battle with prosecutors and police that increasingly appears to be guided only by superstition and ruthless ambition.

Preston's involvement begins in 2000 when he moves his family to the hills above Florence. He discovers there is a duality to Tuscany. There are slow-paced medieval villages and lustrous meadows, but on moonless nights the meadows are the stalking grounds of a fiend who has caused dread in the hearts of generations of Florentines.

The first half of the book focuses on the historical details of the crimes. The dead -- seven couples and a pair of German tourists -- were found parked in their cars or camped in the Tuscan countryside. Female victims were mutilated.

Spezi, an enterprising Italian crime reporter, questions the disjointed puzzles investigators construct to explain the appalling slayings. He becomes obsessed with the case. After a spate of bureaucratic screw-ups and investigative fits and starts, Italian authorities finally link three men to the gruesome murders, including Pietro Pacciani, a farmhand dubbed the ''Monster of Florence'' by local media.

In a 1994 televised trial, the 69-year-old Pacciani was convicted of 14 murders and sentenced to life in prison. But in February 1996, an appeals court cleared Pacciani, and he was ordered to face a new trial. He died in 1998 of what authorities termed natural causes while awaiting it.

After Preston's arrival in the second half of the narrative, authorities reopen the infamous case amid speculation they were investigating up to a dozen wealthy Italians who orchestrated the ritualistic slayings by manipulating a trio of voyeuristic peasants.

A local medium, painted as an unhinged woman who has sway over the leading public minister in the case, helps lead authorities to increasingly feverish resolutions. Soon officials are breathing down the necks of Spezi and Preston, who maintain a lone killer carried out the murders.

The writing is evocative, and the collaborators skillfully weave the narratives back and forth to create tension. The Monster of Florence is a fascinating story that unfolds with memorable characters and dizzying plot twists that might come off as far-fetched -- if the book were fictional.

David McFadden reviewed this book for The Associated Press.

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