From the 1911 theft of Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa at the Louvre to the Ocean's Eleven movie franchise, heists have long fascinated audiences. Walter Marsh's The Butterfly Thief: Adventure, Fraud, Scotland Yard, and Australia's Greatest Museum Heist will appeal to nature lovers and true-crime aficionados alike.
Australia's unusual biodiversity was a boon for lepidopterists (those who study butterflies and moths) seeking new species. Naturalists established massive collections in the early 20th century, and George Lyell donated his assemblage of more than 51,000 specimens to the National Museum of Victoria. It was displayed, 60 cases at a time, in a rotating exhibit expected to last years. But on January 13, 1947, hundreds of butterflies were found missing, and panic quickly spread as natural history museums across Australia realized that their collections had also been robbed.
Well-researched and methodical, The Butterfly Thief traces the lives of museum staff, Australian lepidopterists including Lyell and Athol Waterhouse, and the backstory of Colin Wyatt, the man eventually suspected of the thefts. A member of a famous English family, Wyatt was a mountain climber, skier, and adventurer whose swaggering exploits often made the British tabloids. He also was a gifted artist and naturalist who traveled the world to explore, paint, and photograph nature.
Marsh's narrative becomes increasingly engrossing as the investigation unfolds, particularly once Scotland Yard comes onto the case. Even more than 70 years later, museum researchers are still finding errors and falsifications meant to conceal the thefts. The Butterfly Thief is an excellent history and a captivating work of modern crime. --Jessica Howard, former bookseller, freelance book reviewer