Hemangini Dutt Majumder returns with her latest Gothic detective mystery, The Scratch and Sniff Chronicles (Niyogi Books), featuring a new kind of sleuth—one who can sniff out more than just lies. The book was launched at Delhi’s Alliance Française, amidst a laughter-filled conversation with a panel featuring Patricia Loison, director of Alliance Française; actor Padmapriya Janakiraman; RJ Sarthak; chef Sadaf Hussain; and the author herself.
The evening set in the jasmine-scented, flower-filled auditorium was designed to evoke Neelbari, the mysterious ancestral estate in the novel, set in West Bengal’s Chandannagar, mirroring the immersive world of Ollie’s story.
Olympia Chattergé—Ollie, for short—is a 29-year-old sommelier with an aversion to working out, a deep love for food and random Nat Geo factoids, and one highly unusual gift: a hyper-sensitive nose which picks up random fragrances, that often has her jokingly comparing herself to Batman. Nearly every page contains a smell-note: the comforting familiarity of talcum powder, the sharpness of garam masala, the antiseptic zing of Ultracin gel, or the unmistakable aroma of Koraishutir Kochuri (fried bread with pea stuffing).
The idea to centre the narrative around olfactory senses was born out of Majumder’s own hypersensitivity to smell—a condition partly linked to her diagnosis of polycystic ovaries. “This is a lived experience — a lens through which I’ve often experienced the world,” she says.
From a young age, she associated every family member—and every space—with a distinct scent. “Smell is one of our earliest senses, and it ties so deeply to nostalgia,” she says. “Home had a smell. School had a smell. In the book, I talk about schools and little girls—chalk, tiffin boxes, and that mad mix of smells that instantly brings back memories.”
Ollie’s hyper-olfactory senses—triggered by hormonal changes since the age of 13—become both a professional advantage (she’s one of the few female sommeliers in her field) and a key to unravelling dark family secrets when the family relocates to the eerie ancestral estate of Neelbari.
Majumder reframes hyperosmia as a superpower rather than a burden. “The actual experience of hyperosmia isn’t always pleasant. I wanted to take something that felt like a disadvantage, a liability, and flip it on its head.”
She looks at scents as both emotional depth and investigative potential. “A heightened sense of smell isn’t only about being overwhelmed by unpleasant odours—it’s also about a deeper appreciation for beautiful, subtle ones,” she explains. “I wanted to bring that richness into the story. And see whether Ollie could use it to find clues?”
Food in pages
Majumder slips food into the book in casual, offhanded observations—moments when characters are caught savouring something, or when Ollie’s hypersensitive nose picks up a scent that triggers memory or emotion.
A Bengali, Majumder lives in Singapore but she has lived in many places—New York and Austin in the US, Bahrain, and in cities like Mumbai and Kolkata. Yet, her relationship with food remains deeply emotional and rooted to her Bengali roots in Kolkata. “Food is inextricably linked to home,” she says. “When I find comfort food in a place, and the smells that come with it, that’s when I know I’ve truly settled in. And when I leave a city, it feels like leaving a part of home behind.”
Although she left Kolkata 25 years ago, that link between food, memory, and identity has only deepened. “As a wandering Bengali, your desire for food that reminds you of home just intensifies,” she says. “You’re having bouillabaisse somewhere and you’re suddenly thinking of the machher jhol back home.”
That deep emotional connection fuels the food writing in her book—which, she admits, may have accidentally taken over. “When I re-read it, I realized this is how my brain talks to me. But when other people read it, they’re like, there’s so much food in this!” So food wasn’t just part of Ollie’s world—it was part of the writing process itself. “It triggered memories, cravings, and recipes,” says the author.
The novel’s setting
Majumder, who describes herself as a lover of “work that happened hundreds of years ago,” often returns to the comforts of Agatha Christie and PG Wodehouse. She sets The Scratch and Sniff Chronicles in the historic town of Chandannagar—once a French colony just outside Kolkata—because of a childhood memory. “Kolkata had British colonial ties, but Chandannagar had this strong, dreamy French influence that stayed romanticised in my head,” she says.
The Chattergés—Ollie’s family—are a nod to that very Francophile legacy, loosely inspired by figures like Durga Charan Rakshit, the first Indian to receive the French Légion d'honneur, who even re-spelled his name to reflect his immersion in the culture. Neelbari itself is imagined chaos—Gothic gargoyles, stained glass, a Kalibari shrine, a perfectly round room, sprawling gardens, and whispers in the walls.
While she’s not working on her next book just yet, she’s definitely eyeing another crime thriller. Let’s just say Ollie might not be the only woman with a nose for trouble.
This article is written by Adithi Reena Ajith