When I first picked up Winged Obsession: The Pursuit of The Worlds Most Notorious Butterfly Thief by Jessica Weart, I wasn’t very excited. A book about butterfly collectors, how exciting can that be? When I think butterfly collectors, I think of an uptight old man, passively smoking a pipe, listening to classical music, nothing exciting. Turns out lepidopterists, butterfly collectors, aren’t the boring types I thought they were. Butterfly collecting can become a passionate, expensive obsession. Some rare butterflies are valued over 30,000 dollars, and there have been instances where collectors have risked it all in order to obtain a unique butterfly for their collection.

Actually, I found out there are famous lepidopterists, including the controversial writer of Lolita, Vladimir Nabakov. In Winged Obsession, Weart attempts to explore this obsession, by following the true story of the “capture” of the world’s most infamous butterfly dealer, Yoshi Kojima. The story is the epitome of cat and mouse, (or should I say butterfly and net), starring United States Fish and Wildlife agent Ted Newcomer and butterfly master smuggler Yoshi Kojima. Kojima considers himself the Indiana Jones of butterflies, and had been able to elude wildlife protection for years due his ability to create an elaborate web of lies, mind the bug pun.