Winged Obsession - 01/29/21

 Hello Entomologists, 

Book 6: Winged Obsession: The Pursuit of the World's Most Notorious Butterfly Smuggler (7/10)

I've decided just to list the book. Since I've completed 6 in the first 4 weeks. 

Premise: Ed Newcomer,  Fish and Wildlife Agent goes undercover to catch one of the world's foremost butterfly smugglers, and other secondary missions. 

I'm going to start out by saying that the Author Jessica Speart is a fiction author and this is her first (and only as far as I can tell) attempt into non-fiction. This story reads like a mystery adventure novel. The thoughts and conversations are often thrown into this book. While she did watch hours and hours of video tape, read endless documents, and interview Ed Newcomer, there is still obviously some creative license taken with the story. I did learn quite a bit about butterflies while reading this, most of which I already forgot, but was very intriguing and thrown in nicely. 

Ed Newcomer just started at the Fish and Wildlife department and was given a case to catch Yoshi Kojima a Japanese national and a butterfly smuggler. Yoshi gets and ships illegal and often endangered insects around the world for collectors, mainly butterflies and beetles. Newcomer initially runs into Yoshi, an eccentric but somewhat charming man at the LA Bug Fair. He pretended to be a novice butterfly collector and luckily Yoshi offered to take him under his wing. From their a slurry of phone calls and emails led to Yoshi dropping off the radar for almost two years. 

Ed Newcomer takes on new cases in this time, including Pigeon racers who trap and kill protected falcons, who as clubs kill hundreds to thousands of these birds every year to protect their precious pigeons. This Newcomer is a new man, he's much more comfortable undercover than he was originally, and finds his way into the pigeon racing clubs quite easily. Additionally he sets up surveillance to catch them with photographic evidence.

While working with the Pigeon racers, he gets a tip that Yoshi is coming back to the United States for the first time in 2 years.  This time Ed is ready and plays along with all of Yoshi's eccentric requests. The cases crescendo nearly at the same time, running Newcomer ragged. Playing 2 different undercover roles. Until the cases both come to a close. 

The last scene of the book is a more personal look at Yoshi Kojima, con man, and smuggler. The author Jessica Speart takes a trip to Japan and finds Yoshi and has several conversations with him offering some insight in closer on the case. 

So go out and look at some butterflies, enjoy watching them fly around and admire their colors. But look and don't catch! 

and remember dear readers, Stay Vivid.