Perfume (book)

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (1979) is a novel by Patrick Suskind. The story is set in 18th-century France. It relates the fascinating and horrifying tale of Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, a person as gifted as he was abominable. Grenouille was born without a smell of his own but endowed with an incomparable sense of smell. He apprentices himself to a perfumer and becomes obsessed with procuring the perfect scent that will make him fully human. It is a highly sophisticated horror tale - superbly researched and written.