Butterflies conjure up images of innocence and fragile, fluttery beauty. But mankind has put a value on beauty, and where there is money to be made there is probably a black market, a seedy underworld of smugglers and killers who murder the objects of obsession.

Winged Obsession offers a fascinating glimpse into the illegal market in exotic and endangered butterflies. Author Jessica Speart tracks the efforts of a rookie agent with the federal Fish and Wildlife Service to catch the world’s best – and worst – butterfly trafficker. Speart, a mystery writer and environmental journalist, became entranced by the story of the arrest of Yoshi Kojima. As she dug deeper, she found Ed Newcomer, the agent and a classic hero for a police procedural.

Speart weaves a taut tale, following Newcomer from his first bumbling efforts to gain Kojima’s confidence through several setbacks. Kojima fancied himself a celebrity in the world of butterfly smuggling, and with contacts all over the world who find, capture and kill endangered butterflies for him, he led a formidable and almost untouchable gang of butterfly pillagers.

She also explores the strange world of butterfly collectors, concentrated in Japan, where she writes that “one of every ten Japanese men is considered to be an obsessive butterfly collector.”

“Butterfly collectors with the financial means will do whatever is necessary to obtain the specimens they want. For some, it’s the equivalent of collecting a Renoir or a Van Gogh. Butterflies and bugs are considered high-end art. For others, it’s more like stamp collecting. Dealers know this and will go to extreme lengths to satisfy their customer’s appetite,” she writes.

Speart interviews butterfly dealers and collectors, scientists and museum curators. And they all know of Kojima and the fabulous specimens he’s able to acquire.

Speart’s background in environmental journalism shows. She navigates the intricacies of the laws and international treaties meant to protect endangered species and deftly shows how ineffective they often are. And she writes with the outrage of a passionate protector of the natural world. Sometimes, she goes a little far, like when she claims that Fish and Wildlife’s Office of Law Enforcement “is the most undermanned and underfunded body in the entire federal government.” She paints a pretty good picture of overworked agents trying to protect America’s wildlife. But everyone believes their particular slice of the federal pie should be bigger.

Speart ends the book with a slim chapter on her own foray to Japan to meet Kojima after he has served his prison sentence. There, she learns that he has no intention of reforming his ways – he’s still dealing in exotic butterflies, and he’s still looking for an American to take on the risk while sharing a little in the reward.

So the glorious Queen Alexandra Birdwing, the largest butterfly in the world with a wing-span of almost one foot and delicate blue and green markings, is still in danger of finding itself in the net of one of Kojima's minions. By the end of Winged Obsession, I was rooting for creatures I didn’t know existed before I read the book.

In his final conversation with Speart, Kojima tells her he thinks he will be reincarnated as a butterfly.

“If karma existed, he’d be hatched by a butterfly breeder and live all of five minutes,” Speart writes. Or maybe he could just come back as a dung beetle and live his life obsessed with feces.