Base Notes

By: Lara Elena Donnelly

Narrated by: Avi Roque

A lasting impression is worth killing for.

In New York City everybody needs a side hustle, and perfumer Vic Fowler has developed a delicate art that has proved to be very lucrative: creating bespoke scents that evoke immersive memories - memories that, for Vic’s clients, are worth killing for. But the city is expensive, and these days even artisanal murder doesn’t pay the bills. When Joseph Eisner, a former client with deep pockets, offers Vic an opportunity to expand the enterprise, the money is too good to turn down. But the job is too intricate - and too dangerous - to attempt alone.

Manipulating fellow struggling artists into acting as accomplices is easy. Like Vic, they too are on the verge of burnout and bankruptcy. But as relationships become more complicated, Vic’s careful plans start to unravel. Hounded by guilt and a tenacious private investigator, Vic grows increasingly desperate to complete Eisner’s commission. Is there anyone - friends, lovers, coconspirators - that Vic won’t sacrifice for art?

©2022 Lara Elena Donnelly. (P)2021 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.

Critic reviews

“Scent is everything in Donnelly’s unique, voluptuous thriller…Manhattan’s beau monde served up in juicy, evocative prose.”—Kirkus Reviews

“This intoxicating thriller keeps the reader guessing. With luck, Vic will be back for an encore.”—Publishers Weekly

“Art. Love. Scent. And murder. Lara Elena Donnelly’s new book has it all.”—Salon

Could Have Been Great

The story itself is interesting. Slow but necessary to the set up. IMO as if Patricia Highsmith wrote “American Psycho”. But what lowers the audiobook appreciation level is the narration. He reads in short sound bytes, often breaking sentences into phrases, disrupting the flow. He has a non- New Yorker accent with hard “D’s” and despite the urban familiarity, pronounced it Yew-ston Street, instead of House-ton (as everyone in the NY area knows). If that doesn’t bother you, it’s worth a listen.

Most Unusual

When you don't like the main character, and never do - even as the story continues - it's difficult to actually like a book, and even harder to recommend it And yet, I liked this story. The more I listened, the more I couldn't stop. And I will recommend it, with some reservation. It's written in a beautifully crafted and unique voice - like none I've never heard before.

A NYC perfumist who kills people to acquire scents is the foundation for Vic Fowler's monologue - the story he directly tells to you. If you're willing to take in his story, losing characters along the way, then by all means dive into it, and enjoy the unravelling ride.

The reader is brilliant - relaying with accurate self-absorption & cold-hearted feeling - Vic's myopic perspectives on life, love, and the challenges he can only solve through murder.

The narrator is horrible!

I often wondered if the narrator was doing something else whilst narrating this book - maybe having a V8, walking the dog or driving the kids to school? Horrible. It made it hard to get into the story. The storyline had promise but the narrator killed that and the ending could have been better.

Narrator Disctracts, Story a Bit Too Meh

The idea is twistedly brilliant = turning people you've been hired to kill into perfume for the client ala scent trophies. But it swings way off into too many can-not-go-with-it branches; even for a clearly fantastical story The killer is just not 'special', and believing 'they' can manipulate others into murder, real murder, for paper thin reasons (really)? Hmm. Trying to hold on to the story gets painful due to its blatant errors in logic. But, the real throwing force is the narrators odd, annoying style. The verbal flow is wildly off...stop/starts that leave you thrown back a few sentences = "I went to the store..................(pause)................it was the smell of Snapple." Big long pauses. But, the sentence/thought is not done. And, what flavor of Snapple? Or the wrong word emphasis making a sentence nonsensical. Since nitpicking, there's also the odd, jarring, soft 'tt' over and over; for-otin, is forgeTTen, gah-in' is goTTen etc. etc. Sad as the performance could have been great; it was awful I pre-ordered the audio...mistake. Always listen to a narrator before committing. Skip this.

Rough. Can't believe I actually finished it.

Bad doesn't cover it. it's so into itself it's painful to read. Nothing flows, the main character/narrator is annoying, pedantic, and ridiculous. Somehow we are supposed to believe he has a basically supernatural power to endow perfumes with memories or something? just go look at the quotes on good reads before reading this. Hours of my life I will never get back