J

J is for 'Jean-Baptiste Grenouille'.

This guy is the main character in 'Perfume'. If you've read the book or the Alan Rickman movie (I hear it's very good too), you already have shivers down your spine. Jean has a heightened sense of smell... he can discern the many different notes or undertones of smells. Of everybody and everything around him! This condition is a classic case of synaesthesia, where one form of sensory stimulus (here, sight or taste) is perceived as another smell).

Understandably, this socially inept and weird boy gets picked up for his gift by a perfumer. It was a good choice because Jean makes him very successful because he whips up new scents without any regard for process or protocol. But, like all twisted characters, he eventually embarks on a quest to make the best perfume of all... the book is replete with his dark ways of doing it. Eventually, he is caught for the multiple ruthless murders of young girls; the climax of the book when he is about to be hanged is brilliant. I relate to him because I relate a lot to the smells of things and people... not a good thing to relate to a psychopath!

Not connected, just my favourite poison... oops! I meant perfume.