The perfume thief

Incorporating the tense setting of Nazi-occupied Paris, Schaffert concocts a memorable work that oozes atmosphere and originality. Her criminal past behind her, the stylishly dapper Clementine, a queer American in her early seventies, runs a thriving perfume shop supplying fragrances to the women of the cabarets. Then Zoé St. Angel, the headlining chanteuse at Madame Boulette's, pleads for Clem's help in retrieving a diary with the secret formulas used by a missing perfumer, Monsieur Pascal. Clem accepts this dangerous challenge, which involves keeping company with the Nazi living in Pascal's house, Oskar Voss, who adores French culture. "Perfume isn't only about chemistry. It's also about psychology," she says, and the novel is redolent with exquisite scents, the meanings they convey, and the memories they evoke. The plot sometimes gets buried beneath all the descriptions, but it boasts beguiling characters who gain depth with each unveiled layer. Schaffert creates a lasting impression through his tribute to these unique artists, the "alchemists of the city's very soul," and their courageous and creatively daring methods of resistance.

Schaffert's intoxicating blend of decadence and intrigue (after The Swan Gondola) brings Nazi-occupied Paris vividly to life. Narrator Clementine, a gender-fluid American expatriate in her 70s, is a perfumer and former thief who embraces the transgressive habitués of the city's bordellos and cabarets. When a singer friend asks Clementine to steal the hidden diary of her father, the world-renowned perfumer Pascal, from the house the Nazis ejected them from, Clementine hopes to kill two birds with one stone: keep Pascal's perfume formula out of his enemies' hands, and take possession herself of his trade secrets, some of which she believes he stole from her. To achieve her goal, Clementine turns latter-day Scheherazade, stringing along Pascal's Nazi usurper, bureaucrat Oskar Voss, while unfurling a running account of her colorful and queer personal history as she searches the perfumer's premises. Schaffert's evocation of Paris and its wartime demimonde is sensual and alluring, but the heart of his novel is Clementine's demonstration through her own adventures of how every life is its own heady perfume, distilled from the personal experiences of the individual. This is a rich and rewarding tale, as original and unique as the handiwork of its eponymous character. Agent: Alice Tasman, Jean V. Naggar Literary. (Aug.)

Schaffert's (The Swan Gondola) sensuous historical novel, set in Nazi-occupied Paris, stars 72-year-old con artist and perfumer Clementine, who has been asked by a chanteuse to steal a book of perfume formulas. What happens next unwinds a complicated series of memories rich in atmosphere and perfume arcana. Gabrielle de Cuir enlivens Clementine's first-person present-tense voice, bringing a perfect sense of accents and language to her forceful yet nuanced narration of the audiobook. Of particular interest is Schaffert's author's note on some of the more recherché aspects of the tale (subcutaneous perfume injections; butterfly essences; books describing exotic scent lore). VERDICT Recommended for those with a literary bent, a love of Paris, and an interest in perfumery or World War II. --David Faucheux

Nightlife goes on in Schaffert's ornate tableau of Nazi-occupied Paris. Schaffert's narrator, Clementine, is presumably in her 70s, though she's not talking. A Nebraska native, Clem is self-described as queer and has long preferred the persona of a dapper dandy. Settling in Paris after a long history of thievery in the United States, and one monumental and disappointing love affair with another person known only as M, she dares not return to the U.S., where too many warrants await. In France, she exploits her other signature talent, perfumery. Her chief competitor, Pascal, has disappeared, which is no surprise since Paris has been seized by the Nazis and Pascal is Jewish. Pascal's Left Bank hôtel particulier now bivouacs aging Nazi kingpin Voss, who, as a member of the old guard, clings desperately to his rank. Zoé, Pascal's daughter, sings torch songs incognito in a cabaret attached to a bordello. Lush description of scents and extravagant lists of everything from butterflies to poisons underscore Clem's prodigious powers of observation, but the novel's beautifully rendered atmosphere is no substitute for suspense and conflict. The aesthete Voss and the loutish but lovelorn Lutz, whose unwilling mistress Zoé becomes, are not particularly menacing though they're Nazis, and the terrors of the Occupation--the dispossession and removal of the city's Jews, the hunger, the cruelty of the occupiers and the co-optation of the occupied--are mostly offstage. There are nods to the Resistance--but even here, misplaced whimsy obtains: for example, tobacco-scavenging nuns branch out into helping prostitutes flee south, disguised in habits. In what passes for an overarching plotline, Voss and Clem form an uneasy alliance to ferret out Pascal's hidden perfumer's diary as part of a double-cross which begins as fanciful and ends as anticlimactic. For most of the novel, Clem, her young protégé Blue, and her friend Day, also a chanteuse, seem to be enjoying themselves far too much for the setting. A discordantly frothy vision of Paris' darkest chapter. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

9780385545747|excerpt Schaffert / THE PERFUME THIEF 1 If you're picturing me in some ladylike frock printed with posies, lace at the collar, don't. I'm not done up that way. I began wearing trousers long before we ladies were allowed. You'll find me in tweed and neckties, shirtsleeves and cuff links, fedoras and porkpies. People sometimes say, She's still somewhat handsome, and I think they mean it as a compliment. "Are you whoever you are when you're dressed," a fellow asked me many, many years ago--­decades, probably--­a bourbon in one hand, his other hand toying with the button of my suspenders, "or are you whoever you are when you're naked?" I've had aliases. Sometimes I committed my crimes as a man, sometimes as a woman, sometimes as a woman in a man's clothes. I don't think of myself as dishonest, though. Never did. I've told lies, yes, but you can't call me a liar just for being different. I'm an actor, if anything. I'm none of those people I pretended to be. Or, better yet, I'm all of them. And I have a good heart, and I'm a damn sight kinder than most of the saps I've snookered. When I was famous for a time, I'd be doing you a favor to filch your fine goods. People practically begged me to fleece them so they could boast of it. They'd pay me double the worth of whatever I took, just for the bragging rights. I haven't dragged my tuxedo out in years, and though I've never much minded the scent of mothballs, I've doused myself, lapel to sock, in a perfume I've bottled new for the occasion--­the pretty, powdery stink of fresh-­plucked mimosa smuggled up from the farms south of here, from the unoccupied zones, snuck right past the border by my underground spice merchant. This illegal perfume is my little slap on the nose to any Nazi who comes sniffing around my throat. Now we've been invited back, we Parisians, to some of the clubs, some of the parties, some of the playgrounds we got kicked out of when our invaders invaded. They need us drunk and happy and batting our lashes at the enemy. They need Paris to be Paris. They need the city they stole to be something worth stealing after all. It's all pretend, but that's fine, because I was always my most charming when I lied. Excerpted from The Perfume Thief: A Novel by Timothy Schaffert All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.