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''The Butterfly Clues'' is a young adult mystery novel written by Kate Ellison and published in February 2012 by Egmont USA. ''The Butterfly Clues'' tells the story of Penelope "Lo" Marin, an outcast teenage girl who struggles with Obsessive—compulsive disorder (OCD) and has to deal with the constant urge to steal various items, the frequent relocation due to her father's job, and the memory of her brother Oren's death. Throughout the novel, Lo's problems arise as both weaknesses and strengths, which she is forced to deal with as she attempts to solve the murder of a young stripper. ==Plot== ''The Butterfly Clues'' by Kate Ellison, follows the story of Penelope “Lo” Marin and is set in Cleveland, Ohio. Before the novel starts, Lo’s brother Oren ran away and was found dead in an abandoned apartment building in Neverland “the city of lost children”.〔Ellison, p. 17〕 Before Lo does anything she uses the sequences of multiples of threes and bananas for “security”. Lo is an outcast who takes items she sees as beautiful and arranges them in places “where everything makes sense”.〔Ellison, p. 2〕 Lo goes to Neverland and takes a marble angel for her collections. As she turns to leave for home Lo hears sirens behind her. Lo fears that someone saw her take the angel, so she hides in an alleyway beside “an ugly yellow house”.〔Ellison, p. 4〕 A shot is fired that kills Sapphire a “nineteen year old . . . stripper” who has “angry eyes, and her lips are a bruised blue-purple color — a lipstick” 〔Ellison, p. 18〕 and lived in the yellow house. Lo decides to look into Sapphire’s murder. Lo goes to a flea market in Neverland to look for more items for her collections and is bumped into a nearby stand by someone running past her. At the stand Lo finds many of the Sapphire’s belongings stolen when she was murdered. Lo steals a horse pendant and the owner of the stand (Mario) gives her Sapphires butterfly figurine in an effort to keep her from telling the police about the stolen items. Lo returns to Neverland to uncover more clues into Sapphire’s life. She goes back to Sapphire’s house to look for more clues and outside she meets the boy who pushed her into Mario’s stand: Flynt. Together they break into Sapphire's "daisy-yellow house” 〔Ellison, p. 128〕 and Lo takes three frog figurines, Sapphire’s black rhinestone bustier, and her journals. While Lo looks around the house she sees pictures of Sapphire wearing her signature blue-purple lipstick, but Lo can’t find the lipstick anywhere. Lo’s interest in the murder leads to Lo receiving her first threat: a dead cat on her front porch with a note attached that says “now you know what curiosity did. Be careful, or you’ll end up like the cat”.〔Ellison, p. 79〕 The first threat brings Lo to realize that before she goes to Tens (the strip club where Sapphire worked) she will need a disguise, and thus Lo becomes Juliet from her mom’s unused makeup, skirt, and heels. At Tens, Lo asks Sapphire’s coworkers about her and they say that she was protective of her blue lipstick, but was nice to everyone. As she’s leaving, Lo trips on a curtain and lands on a man's lap: Gordon Jones. The next day, Lo receives a second threat: eight pictures of her taped to her locker with acid on them to make them look like they were being consumed by flames with the warning: “back off bitch” 〔Ellison, p. 154〕 written across the pictures. Lo goes looking for Mario and information of Sapphire’s stolen items, and finds him dying in his apartment. Lo returns to Tens to see if Mario and Sapphire’s murders are related and learns from another one of Sapphire’s coworkers that Sapphire was receiving gifts from a man. As Lo tries to leave, she is grabbed and shoved into a corner where a man tells her “this () your final warning. There won’t be another one”.〔Ellison, p. 200〕 Lo goes to the police and tells them “about being pulled into a room in the back of the club by the bouncer, threatened — the cat, the acid. About Mario. All of it”,〔Ellison, p. 205〕 but they don’t believe her because they think she’s a drug addict. One police officer (Officer Gardner) believes Lo and tells her that Sapphire’s lipstick Lo has been looking for what used to write “slut”〔Ellison, p. 243〕 across Sapphire’s body. Lo’s father asks her what the police officer was asking her and doesn’t believe Lo when she tries to pass it off as “not important. Routine”.〔Ellison, p. 244〕 Lo runs from her house and finds herself back in Neverland. She calls her father to come pick her up and when they get home he goes to her room and “go() through () things...throwing them away”.〔Ellison, p. 259〕 When he finishes, Lo looks at Sapphire’s broken butterfly and sees Sapphire’s SIM card hidden inside. When Lo plugs the SIM card into her phone she finds threatening messages from Anchor and messages from Bird (Sapphire’s boyfriend) and discovers that Bird is Oren. Lo returns to Tens, and by using Sapphire’s SIM card calls Anchor and learns that he is Gordon Jones. Jones kidnaps Lo. As Jones is about to kill her Officer Gardner and Flynt save her. Officer Gardner tells Lo that Sapphire was killed because she threatened Jones with publicizing his threats to her. Lo’s father comes to pick Lo up from the police station and admits that Lo is an “amazing young woman”.〔Ellison, p. 306〕 His acceptance of Lo leads to Lo showing her father a letter from Oren before he died, which brings Lo and her father closer. Flynt and Lo decide to go to prom together where Lo finds her confidence and defends herself against the popular girl who said she didn’t belong. Flynt shows Lo the “most beautiful thing () ever seen”:〔Ellison, p. 323〕 a painting of herself which forces Lo to admit that she is beautiful. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「The Butterfly Clues」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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