I FIRST saw the book at Borders round about Christmas. As fascinated I am with serial killers and the general real crime genre, I thought it would be perverse to read about Austria's most famous Monster over the festive season.
But given the extensive media coverage of his trial over the past fortnight, I caved in in the end and was relieved to find one last copy wedged in the true crime section.
Written by Allan Hall, a foreign correspondent based in Berlin who writes for various publications world-wide including London's Daily Mail and the New York Post in the US, Monster features insights into Josef Fritzl's personality from neighbours, friends and psychoanalysts on his case never before interviewed by the media.
Chronicling Fritzl's enthrallment with Nazi philosophy during Austria's occupation in his formative years, his childhood abuse at the hands of his mother and Oedipus syndrome, his police records of attempted rape and "exhibitionism", his eventual 18-month incarceration for rape (after his wife bore him four children), his sexual odysseys to Thailand and local brothels, and the reader begins to get an idea why his Id and uncontrollable libido led him to commit the ultimate crimes that he is now (in)famous for.
One year ago, it came to light that he had kidnapped his then-18-year-old daughter, locked her in a specially-built dungeon under his house for 24 years, raped and abused her, fathering seven children by her, and getting rid of one newborn who died by incinerating its body within the house of horror.
Only when one - his firstborn by his daughter Elisabeth - started to show signs of organ failure and forced him to bring her out of the poorly-ventilated dungeon and off to the hospital, did his carefully laid plans come to light (pun intended). Elisabeth was eventually brought out of her captivity to corroborate her father's plans, but she rebelled and told the truth - and the truth literally set her free.
What a story. Especially given the insider perspectives of friends who described how he literally erased his previous rape conviction and jail term by relocating temporarily and making new friends who knew nothing of his past. He even bought a guest house elsewhere in Austria for his wife to run, while he slowly, meticulously built the underground dungeon back home with eight security doors all by himself - without his neighbours suspecting the slightest thing.
Closing the paperback, I can scarcely wait for the release of more updated versions - one which Elisabeth herself is considering to author. It will no doubt cover all the details that made even Fritzl himself break down after watching her 11-hour video testimony in court. He finally pleaded guilty to all charges when he apparently discovered how Elisabeth truly felt and was sentenced to life imprisonment.
Then I opened the newspapers this morning and read this: Reforming sex offenders - Prison programme prevents repeat crimes by those likely to re-offend by my colleagues Teh Joo Lin and Kimberly Spykerman. One of the sidebars to the story spoke of "chemical castration" - an experiment by the US and a few European countries giving sex offenders drugs to lower their libido in the hope that they won't repeat their crimes upon release.
Could this have averted the Fritzl family's ordeal? He was, after all, jailed for 18 months for rape back in 1967.
To quote my colleagues' story: "A prosecutor in Florida said: 'I get a lot of people who are impotent, but who still commit sexual battery. It's not their gonads - it's their heads.'"
Josef Fritzl is a psychological aberration. Chemical castration wouldn't have stopped him from psychologically abusing his wife and cowing her into whatever he wanted her to do. It wouldn't have stopped him deciding that Elisabeth was the daughter he wanted to enslave, batter and have a second underground life and family with.
He'll be spending the rest of his life in a secure psychiatric facility. But is that enough?
And what will happen now to the rest of the Fritzl family? According to Allan Hall's book, the cellar clan are slowly getting the Vitamin D they need from sunlight and are getting to know the "upstairs family" - although Elisabeth is distressed that her "upstairs offspring" call their grandmother "mother" and not her.
What will happen to them? Reports say they will be moved to an unrevealed part of Austria under different identities to recover from the decades of psychological and physical abuse. Will they ever be able to reintegrate into society? Probably not.
If you want to read Monster, I'm afraid I bought the last copy at Borders. But just wait a month or so, and I'm sure there'll be more comprehensive alternatives.
It's perverse, I know. But I can't wait.
Read more about the Fritzl case here, as well as other similar cases. Also, what do you think of the whole heinous saga? Leave your thoughts here.