Perfume

by Suskind

Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, the protagonist of Patrick Suskind’s début novel, is arguably one of the most extraordinary characters in contemporary fiction. This extraordinariness, which lies in his unprecedented and enviable power of smell, is an evident manifestation of the author’s creative genius and is responsible for the immense readability of this novel. The novel tells the story of Grenouille’s quest to make the finest perfume in the world–-and in the process of doing so he kills twenty-five virgin girls.