Corruption exists in many different ways and it shows its face in every corner of mankind. This book fascinated me in its depiction of the corruption that existed a century ago.

Broadway Butterfly shows us how deep corruption ran in the American 1920’s. From politics, to elite socialites, to police forces – corruption and greed ruled.

I typically am not one for mystery novels; given the choice, I would much rather pick up a WWII historical fiction or a Russian Revolution drama. Broadway Butterfly may have changed my mind. The murder of Dot King remains unsolved even today. A notorious flapper, beautiful, rich and running with a high title crowd, found brutally murdered in her bed. Dot King’s murder made the news headlines and gripped the nation at its core for weeks. Sara DiVello researched the most minute details of this case to pull us to the edge of our seats for the entire ride.

This debut novel by Sara was written beautifully. In most novels that have more than one Point of View and dozens of characters, the chapters and story line tends to jumble a bit. Not in this one. Never once did the plotline become jumbled or did I feel like we didn’t get enough view from any particular main party.

Between Ella (Dot’s maid), Julia (a female reporter in a man’s world) and John (lead detective on the case), we saw the murder from every viewpoint and got ALL the details.

Ella was a sweet, charming touch that added some amount of softness to an otherwise hard and brutal story. Julia was determined and brought an outsider’s perspective on trying to bring justice to a woman’s murder that otherwise would have been forgotten by the public in a matter of a weeks. John is a committed, righteous detective fighting not only the corruption of his department but also the corruption of the city and nation’s highest levels.

This is a different genre of novel than I would normally gravitate towards for a Fall or Winter read, but I don’t regret it! I highly recommend Broadway Butterfly and will be on the lookout for Sara’s next book.