The Last Note

Odette Merle can smell a lie the way other people hear a wrong note in a symphony. For eleven years, she has worked in the back rooms of the House of Séraphin — one of the most celebrated perfume houses in the country — creating masterpiece after masterpiece while the credit goes to someone else. She has learned to stay quiet, stay invisible, and keep her extraordinary gift to herself. Until the night of the Immortelle launch. When Aurèle Séraphin collapses in front of four hundred guests and a doctor signs his death as heart failure, everyone else mourns the loss of a great man. But Odette's true nose catches what no one else can: the faint bitter trace of poison beneath the scent of ten thousand white flowers. Aurèle Séraphin was murdered. And in his final moments, he had been about to confess something that would have changed everything. Now Odette must investigate a crime no one believes happened, using the only evidence she has — a sense of smell the world refuses to take seriously — to find a killer hiding in plain sight among the glamorous, treacherous world of haute perfumery. A clever, atmospheric cozy mystery set in the golden world of French perfume, The Last Note is perfect for fans of Jacqueline Winspear, Alexander McCall Smith, and character-driven mysteries with a distinctive, unforgettable heroine. The scent of the truth is already in the air. Odette just has to follow it.