Subtitled “The Pursuit of the World’s Most Notorious Butterfly Smuggler”, Jessica Speart’s latest book chronicles the attempts of newbie U.S. Fish and Wildlife Agent Ed Newcomer to bring the kingpin of butterfly smugglers, Yoshi Kojima, to justice. One of the world’s most aesthetically pleasing but endangered species, butterflies are just as lucrative as rhinos, pandas and elephants on the black market. And in this cutthroat $200 million business, no one made more money or posed as great an ecological danger as Kojima. Really? Yes, that's exactly what I said. Read on, dear friend, read on.
Determined to capture Kojima, Newcomer becomes close to the smuggler, posing as a young apprentice itching to learn the smuggling trade. Unfortunately, the untouchable smuggler was able to twice slip through the agent’s inexperienced fingers. Just when it seemed Kojima was out of reach, Newcomer was given one last opportunity to reel him in. Somewhere in the hunt, Kojima had become obsessed with the agent. This obsession, along with his continued mania for butterflies, finally spells the downfall of the notorious smuggler.
When I received this beautiful, green dust-jacketed book in the mail from Harper Collins, I thought "Who cares about the illegal butterfly trade? What a yawn-inducing subject!" However, I AM a bibliophobe and have read less interesting material in the past - like a can of yams, for example. Seriously. My ardent love of literature made me open the book and I was hooked eight pages in. Ms. Speart's writing style is fast paced and witty, much unlike other verbose crime drama writers I've come across in my travels (perhaps because she is first and foremost a mystery novelist). I finished this compelling work of narrative nonfiction mere seconds ago and jumped online to tell my dear readers all about it. If you're looking for an interesting, perhaps offhand, book to add to your summer reading list, you've definitely found it.
Check out Jessica Speart's website and take a peek at Harper Collins' page. If you're lucky, maybe I'll run another free book giveaway by you!
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