The Butterfly Man

Today I was dangerous. I wanted to confess. I wanted to tell her stories I had held back all these years.

In 1974 Lord Lucan disappeared after the murder of the family nanny in London’s Belgravia. He has never (officially) been seen again. Based on that event, The Butterfly Man is a novel about coming to terms with the past when there is no future in sight. Winner of the Davitt Award for best crime fiction novel by an Australian woman in 2006, The Butterfly Man is much more than a novel about a crime. Set on Hobart’s Mt Wellington, here is a year in the life of a man who has discovered unexpected love and a sense wonder, but can never find forgiveness.

Winner of the Davitt Award 2006
Short-listed for the 2006 Nita B Kibble Award
Long-listed for the 2007 IMPAC Awards in Ireland

The success of this exquisitely crafted novel is that it is difficult to remind oneself that it is a work of imagination.”

The Western Australian

The Butterfly Man

Today I was dangerous. I wanted to confess. I wanted to tell her stories I had held back all these years.

The success of this exquisitely crafted novel is that it is difficult to remind oneself that it is a work of imagination.”

This is a moving novel about a man’s struggle to say goodbye to those who have come to love him for the lies he has told…”

Despite the brutal murder that lies at the heart of this impressive novel, the tone of The Butterfly Man is strangely gentle, almost meditative.”

Rose’s lyrical melding … is masterful. Intriguing as the real-life events of the Lucan story are, Rose transforms it into something far more substantial.”