Donato Carrisi – Diego Cugia – Michele Giuttari – Lo Zoo di 105 – Laura Pariani – Maria Rita Parsi – Massimo Picozzi – Paolo Roversi – Cinzia Tani – Mauro Zola Monsters don’t exist. Or perhaps they do. They’re not the ones that populate the genre, but they’re very much like them. Vampires, ogres, werewolves have always prowled through our streets, witness the crime news in the papers. A clear reference for each horror stereotype has a real world reference. Ten writers have identified and described ten examples. So if Massimo Picozzi’s elusive murderer is a perfect ghost, Nicolas Claux, the vampire of Paris, is the inspiration for Diego Cugia’s tale. Then, in the case of ogres, there are almost too many choices: Maria Rita Parsi tells us the sad story of Michel Fourniret. Equally so with cannibals (another incredible yet widespread category), in particular Armin Meiwes, who puts to the test the team of authors that creates and conducts Lo Zoo di 105. The list of monsters in human form wouldn’t be complete without at least one werewolf, a witch, even an undead, alias zombie and, why not, a dark monk who’s naturally mad. And these are added to the list by Mauro Zola, who fished up the blood-thirsty deeds of Fritz Haarmann from the 19th century; by Laura Pariani, who narrates how Anna Goeldi, accused of witchcraft, was decapitated; by Donato Carrisi with Pierre Carrenard, the New York voodoo killer. The monk could be no other than Rasputin, and Cinzia Tani tells the story of his last night on this earth. What remains are the super-archetypes, the scariest ones of all: the grim reaper and the devil himself. There are also perfect examples for them: Paolo Roversi tells us about Martin Bryant, who for one day was death embodied, randomly killing men, women and children; Michele Giuttari portrays the blood tribute offered by a copycat of Richard Ramirez, a devotee of Satan. So monsters do exist. And how. We’ll prove it to you. And if at the end of the book you look at the world with more fright, it’s not serious: this is just a rather special tourist jaunt. Here you don’t travel with your head in the clouds. Here it’s three metres under the ground.