The Perfume Thief: A Novel
Aug 2021 · Anchor
5.0star
1 reviewreport
Ebook
368
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About this ebook
A stylish, sexy page-turner set in Paris on the eve of World War II, where Clementine, a queer American ex-pat and notorious thief, is drawn out of retirement and into one last scam when the Nazis invade.
"A hint of Moulin Rouge, a whiff of Kristin Hannah’s The Nightingale, a little spritz of Hitchcock’s To Catch a Thief... The Perfume Thief is a pulse-pounding thriller and a sensuous experience you’ll want to savor."—Oprah Daily
"[A] superb novel ... This is historical fiction at its finest, vivid and beautifully rendered." —Emily St. John Mandel, author of The Sea of Tranquility
Clementine is a seventy-two year-old reformed con artist with a penchant for impeccably tailored suits. Her life of crime has led her from the uber-wealthy perfume junkies of belle epoque Manhattan, to the scented butterflies of Costa Rica, to the spice markets of Marrakech, and finally the bordellos of Paris, where she settles down in 1930 and opens a shop bottling her favorite extracts for the ladies of the cabarets.
Now it's 1941 and Clem's favorite haunt, Madame Boulette's, is crawling with Nazis, while Clem's people--the outsiders, the artists, and the hustlers who used to call it home--are disappearing. Clem's first instinct is to go to ground--it's a frigid Paris winter and she's too old to put up a fight. But when the cabaret's prize songbird, Zoe St. Angel, recruits Clem to steal the recipe book of a now-missing famous Parisian perfumer, she can't say no. Her mark is Oskar Voss, a Francophile Nazi bureaucrat, who wants the book and Clem's expertise to himself. Hoping to buy the time and trust she needs to pull off her scheme, Clem settles on a novel strategy: Telling Voss the truth about the life and loves she came to Paris to escape.
Complete with romance, espionage, champagne towers, and haute couture, this full-tilt sensory experience is a dazzling portrait of the underground resistance of twentieth-century Paris and a passionate love letter to the power of beauty and community in the face of insidious hate.
"A hint of Moulin Rouge, a whiff of Kristin Hannah’s The Nightingale, a little spritz of Hitchcock’s To Catch a Thief... The Perfume Thief is a pulse-pounding thriller and a sensuous experience you’ll want to savor."—Oprah Daily
"[A] superb novel ... This is historical fiction at its finest, vivid and beautifully rendered." —Emily St. John Mandel, author of The Sea of Tranquility
Clementine is a seventy-two year-old reformed con artist with a penchant for impeccably tailored suits. Her life of crime has led her from the uber-wealthy perfume junkies of belle epoque Manhattan, to the scented butterflies of Costa Rica, to the spice markets of Marrakech, and finally the bordellos of Paris, where she settles down in 1930 and opens a shop bottling her favorite extracts for the ladies of the cabarets.
Now it's 1941 and Clem's favorite haunt, Madame Boulette's, is crawling with Nazis, while Clem's people--the outsiders, the artists, and the hustlers who used to call it home--are disappearing. Clem's first instinct is to go to ground--it's a frigid Paris winter and she's too old to put up a fight. But when the cabaret's prize songbird, Zoe St. Angel, recruits Clem to steal the recipe book of a now-missing famous Parisian perfumer, she can't say no. Her mark is Oskar Voss, a Francophile Nazi bureaucrat, who wants the book and Clem's expertise to himself. Hoping to buy the time and trust she needs to pull off her scheme, Clem settles on a novel strategy: Telling Voss the truth about the life and loves she came to Paris to escape.
Complete with romance, espionage, champagne towers, and haute couture, this full-tilt sensory experience is a dazzling portrait of the underground resistance of twentieth-century Paris and a passionate love letter to the power of beauty and community in the face of insidious hate.
Ratings and reviews
5.0
1 review
Janice Tangen
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June 13, 2021
Paris, perfumery, historical-novel, historical-places-events, historical-research, history-and-culture, LGBTQIA, espionage, theft, entertainer, cabarets, captives, occupation***** Historians and novelists rarely delve into the hardships and persecution of other marginalized people by the Germans at any time in WW2. The are usually given a token mention because their numbers are less dramatic and negative attitudes persist. Little is mentioned about the hypocritical actions of the various officers of the Reich as they occupied the city's cabarets and brothels. Their thievery is well known about some things, but not this particular area. The tale is of an elderly non-conforming perfumer with exceptional talents, even as the author has exceptional talents in describing the personalized scents created. The book is unusual as well as thought provoking and well written. I requested and received a temporary digital ARC of this book from Doubleday Books via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you!
About the author
TIMOTHY SCHAFFERT is the author of five previous novels: The Swan Gondola, The Coffins of Little Hope, Devils in the Sugar Shop, The Singing and Dancing Daughters of God, and The Phantom Limbs of the Rollow Sisters. He is a professor of English and Director of Creative Writing at University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and he writes the column "The Eccentricities of Gentlemen" for the popular lifestyle magazine Enchanted Living.
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