In 1738 in Paris, a baby is born under a fishmonger's bloody table in a marketplace and abandoned. Orphaned, passed over to the monks as a charity case, already there is something about the tiny infant that is unsettling. No one will look after him; he is somehow too demanding and, even more disturbing, something is missing: he doesn't smell the way a baby should; indeed, he has no scent at all. Yet Jean-Baptiste Grenouille clings stubbornly to life, because he possesses an absolute sense of smell, and with it, he can read the world, discovering truths that elude ordinary men. As he leaves childhood behind and comes to understand his terrible uniqueness, his obsession becomes the quest to identify, and then to isolate, the perfect scent--that of life itself. Grenouille embarks on a monstrous quest, until the frenzy of his final triumph explodes in all its horrifying consequences.