El lenguaje prohibido de los aromas is an incomparable novel that takes us to the realm of smell and its consequences.
A novel set in London and Madrid during the second half of the twentieth century.
Legend has it that the most attractive women in the world come from the Rif… The virgins from that place are said to extract the purest scent of femininity from their bodies – a perfume so refined and unadulterated that even one single drop behind a woman’s ear will give the man of her choice the uncontrollable desire to seduce her.
Casilda has believed in the legend from the moment she read it in a book her father gave her, and she has come to feel the irrepressible need to confirm its veracity. Since an early age she was obsessed with perfumes and wanted to create the perfect scent. By 1972 she was one of the best perfumers on the planet and had changed her name to that of her most famous creation: Victoria Lalik. That perfume was divine and irresistible, like the smell of her body: strong and assertive.
In 1975 Casilda’s fiancé, an heir to a big fortune called Charles Mainfort, turns up dead in his bath, covered with roses. It’s a global scandal. The post mortem reveals he ingested high
doses of floral essences. Death by poisoning. Lady Mainfort, Charles’s mother, hires private detective Thomas Pin to solve the murder of her son. A month later the tabloids have a field
day reporting another death: Lady Minfort appears dead in her bed.
A mysterious death, constant doubts, an inspector following up leads. And among all that, Casilda, an enigmatic woman who
