Book Review: The Butterfly Collector by Téa Cooper

With the Great War ending and soldiers returning home to Australia, reporter Verity Binks is not entirely surprised to be given notice at the Sydney newspaper where she works. Not being surprised doesn’t mean not being upset, however. While her editor has promised to pay her stringer’s rates for any article she can bring him in going forward, losing the stability of a staff job is still a significant blow.

So when she gets an unusual invitation to attend the Sydney Artists Masquerade Ball, she doesn’t think twice about accepting. Frankly, she can take or leave the prospect of hobnobbing with her city’s elite. What really draws her in is the unique perspective that attending will give her in reporting on Sydney’s premier social event, back with a vengeance after the war understandably postponed it for several years.

Along with the anonymous invitation is a gift:

Beneath the next layer of tissue, a silken haze danced: bright orange edged in black, a row of white dots accentuating the outline. She shook it free and held it high. It hung from a choker-like collar and draped down to two points like folded wings. She picked up either side of the cape. The wings spread, revealing wrist straps.

 

She fastened the shimmering silk around her neck and tucked her hands inside the loops, raised her arms, then lowered them. The wings fluttered like a bird preparing for flight. Her reflection stared back at her from the darkened window. No, not a bird—a butterfly.

Cloaked in the extravagant costume, Verity soon finds herself participating in the revels. A masked troubadour leads her to David Treadwell, the head of an eponymous charitable foundation dedicated to aiding young women in distress. Treadwell would love to publicize the history of his family’s foundation, but Verity quickly realizes that something strange is afoot, and that it might have to do with her own family’s somewhat murky past. 

In parallel chapters set almost fifty years earlier, young Theodora Breckenridge wants only to be left in peace on her family estate in Morpeth so that she can concentrate on painting her beloved watercolors. Her preferred subject is the natural world, and she’s been corresponding regularly with celebrated botanical artists Harriet and Helena Scott on the subject. When she spots a butterfly she’s never seen before, she quickly realizes that she might actually be the first person in all Australia to have found this specimen in the wild:

A shimmer of russet disrupted the shadows. Tiptoeing forward, Theodora pointed to a clump of paperbark trees. Huddled together to preserve warmth, hundreds of butterflies clustered on the trunks and branches—a mass of autumn leaves flickering and shimmering in the shafts of sunlight. […]

 

The cluster rippled, then the first butterfly took wing and the next and the next. Starting as a stream, the cascade grew. The sound of their beating wings magnified like a waterfall and the air above became orange, blotting out the bright autumn sky.

 

Almost swooning, Theodora stood rooted to the spot.

But Theodora’s search for the butterfly leads her to stumble across a terrible conspiracy, one whose repercussions will resonate over the decades till a young reporter named Verity unwittingly digs up the case once more. Will both women, separated by time, be able to fight for what’s right and make sure justice is served, no matter the cost?

This was a beautifully detailed historical mystery that deftly captures two very different periods in Australia’s past. Theodora and Verity’s individual struggles for self-determination are uncomfortably similar despite the progress allegedly made in the intervening years, as is the insidiousness of the crime they both end up investigating. Based on very real murders and political struggles, The Butterfly Collector is a meticulously detailed comparison that fully immerses readers in both eras.

As a 21st century American, it was also fascinating to see how things we regard as commonplace are considered exotic and novel through the lens of both distance and time. The Wanderer butterfly, as it’s called in the book, is such a part of our culture today that my kids were learning about it in their first few years of grade school. Seeing it treated as a rarity is both a radical shift in perspective as well as a valuable reminder that just a few short years ago this butterfly was considered endangered in North America, too. It’s lovely to read of one small creature’s wider ranging impact, especially when as lovingly detailed as in this novel.