TBK · The Butterfly Killer

Day 1: 3 stars - Day 3 : 5 stars and counting!

The Butterfly Killer is a strange book to classify, it’s got horror, humour, suspense, politics, enormous plot twists, murder, torture as well as a passionate love story all mixed into one gripping read. It’s so beautifully written you might mistakenly start remembering it as a movie, such is the clarity of the prose. The choice and purity of words used by Butler paints wonderfully graphic images in your mind greater than many others are able to.

Our protagonist, a highly functioning sociopathic serial killer Elizabeth Jane Norton enjoys her murderous obsessions unimpeded as she manipulates societies inequality to protect her. Callously killing indiscriminately prior to selling the vital organs of her victims to fund her lifestyle, but all this changes with the arrival of a damning letter. Her hand forced and she’s not one to take it lying down, what follows if a smorgasbord of violence and retribution stemming from a childhood of abuse and manipulation.

Accompanying Elizabeth along her odyssey of vengeful retribution, torture, murder and reprisal are three strong willed, but destructive personalities; each as lovable and hatable at the same time. The Butterfly Killer is one of the few books that can have to in fits of laughter one moment, only to toss you into hell the next. They say a great book echoes real life and The Butterfly Killer does that with horrific clarity and accuracy, real life is never as pretty as we like to think.

Not many author’s are brave, or indeed skilled enough to tackle the taboo’s addresses within The Butterfly Killer, let alone pull it off with such effortlessness that you’ll be questioning the world you live in. Butler’s debut novel is as close to a masterpiece as you can get, an addictive narrative, characters that could be sitting next to you on the tube or train, combined with insults so original and creative the bard himself would be proud of. To sum it all up The Butterfly Killer is simply breath-taking!