Witty stylish and ferociously absorbing ObserverJeanBaptiste Grenouille is abandoned on the filthy streets of eighteenthcentury Paris as a baby but grows up to discover he has an extraordinary gift a sense of smell more powerful than any other humans Gradually he learns how to exploit this gift in the art of creating the most sublime perfumes in France Yet there is one scent he cannot capture the scent of an innocent young virgin In order to perfect his experiments he must have this final ingredient at any cost A cult international bestseller Perfume is a bewitching darkly humorous fable of desire obsession and death