There are monsters in this book. Real ones. The kind that don't growl in the night but nod politely in committee meetings. Some wore uniforms. Others wore suits. A few wore nothing at all. But what they all had in common was an astonishing ability to ruin lives before breakfast — with a clipboard in one hand and moral certainty in the other.

Monsters, Bureaucrats, and Other Familiar Faces is not a history book, though it contains history. It's not a crime anthology, though the crimes will turn your stomach and possibly ruin your sleep. And it's not a psychology manual, though you'll leave knowing more about the human mind than you probably wanted to. It's a literary guided tour through the darkest hallways of human behaviour — a series of true stories told with wit, venom, and an unshakable refusal to look away.

From Soviet serial killers who slipped through ideological blind spots, to colonial regimes that harvested hands like fruit, to cannibals who found soulmates online — each chapter confronts one brutal question: How does horror survive in broad daylight, politely dressed and socially acceptable?

Lu Dragonian writes with a scalpel, not a spoon. No sanctimony. No sugar-coating. Just the raw, rancid meat of truth — carved with precision, grilled with rage, and occasionally seasoned with sarcasm. Because when evil hides in offices, thrives on paperwork, and smiles in photographs, sometimes the only honest response is to laugh — bitterly.

This book is not for the faint of heart, the nostalgically inclined, or anyone who thinks history was just a little misunderstanding. It is for those who want to understand how ordinary people build extraordinary horrors — and how quickly we forget.

Brace yourself. The mirror's not cracked. That's just your reflection blinking back.