In the tradition of Susan Orlean's The Orchid Thief and James Gleick's Genius, The Emperor of Scent tells the story of Luca Turin, an utterly unusual, stubborn scientist, his otherworldly gift for perfume, his brilliant, quixotic theory of how we smell, and his struggle to set before the world the secret of the most enigmatic of our senses.

Chandler Burr is the author ofA Separate Creation: The Search for the Biological Origins of Sexual Orientation. He has contributed to theAtlantic, was a Contributing Editor atUS News&World Report, and has written for theNew York Times Magazine, theWashington Post, theLos Angeles Times, and other publications. He lives in New York.

Patrick Suskind's novel Perfume made real - the true history of a scientific genius with eerie powers of smell who uses his gifts to solve one of the body's last secrets: how the nose works.