Aphrodesia: A Novel of Suspense

Aphrodesia is a mystery novel that takes place in this world.

Eric Foster, the top student at the world-famous perfume institute in France, creates an aphrodisiac of astonishing potency. But when a critical ingredient of his perfume goes missing from the institute's collection, he is accused of the theft and expelled. Disgraced, he takes a mind-numbing job in New York testing scent additives for supermarket products. The only bright spot in his life comes from moonlighting -- with his three-legged bloodhound Daisy -- as a "forensic smell expert" for the NYPD.

When police call him to a crime scene where a woman has killed her lover in a fit of insatiable lust, he is shocked to recognize a familiar smell, his aphrodisiac. The cops tell him they found the same perfume at three similar homicides, and suddenly Eric becomes the prime suspect. Convinced the perfume is a counterfeit, he sets out on a desperate mission to prove his innocence and discover why the knockoff is killing people.

Smell is the most primal of our senses. How it affects us, emotionally and physically, and how experts use it to manipulate us are at the heart of this story.

Aphrodesia was a Quarter-Finalist in the 2012 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award competition.