Publisher's Synopsis
In eighteenth-century Honfleur, a child is born with a terrifying destiny before him. His name is Latour, and his birth is the result of a brutal rape. His mother raises him with tender care even when it becomes clear there's something deeply wrong with the boy: he is physiologically incapable of feeling pain. After serving an apprenticeship with a local taxidermist, Latour leaves home with Valerie, the town whore, to explore the the lower depths of Paris. Obsessed by his abnormality and fascinated by the dark mysteries of pain, Latour becomes trapped in a downward spiral of death, murder and dissection as he attempts to fathom the secrets of every organ in the human body. Through Valerie he finally meets the Marquis de Sade and becomes his manservant: an accomplice in his crimes and a faithful servant until death.
