Perfume: The Story of a Murderer

Author: Patrick Suskind

Published by: Vintage Books (1986)

Jean-Baptiste Grenouille was born unwanted, non-smelling, and with the sense of smell a perfumer would die for. Bouncing from orphanage to tannery, Grenouille learns how to use his acute sense of smell to make perfume at a young age. He becomes the apprentice of Baldini, a hack of a perfumer, and learns the procedures to mix scents. After almost dying, he comes out alive and moves forward – living in a cave for seven years. When he re-emerges, he is taken in by a mad scientist then works at another perfume shop where he creates scents for himself and creates the best scent in the world – to be loved – which proves to be too much at the end.