Half the fun of of reading really good historical fiction is the pain-free way a book can take you into another time, "experiencing" the differences almost as if you were there. International fiction offers the same advantage in terms of location instead of time travel.
So in the third "Mystery of 1920s India" from Sujata Massey, THE BOMBAY PRINCE, you get double the delight in one smoothly written adventure.
Plus, Massey's protagonist, female lawyer Perveen Mistry, is breaking barriers for the women of her time, the first in her career in Bombay. She's compassionate, smart, and rarely makes mistakes in judgment. That means a Massey mystery can focus on crime and detection, instead of on rescuing the amateur sleuth.
It's November 1921 as THE BOMBAY PRINCE opens, and an independence movement is roiling India's political landscape. Long ruled from afar by Great Britain, India's people have paid the usual prices of the colonized: marginalizing minorities (like the Parsi culture that Perveen Mistry has grown up with), skimming revenue, and refusing to let the national leaders actually lead. A visit from the Prince of Wales fans the flames of Gandhi's otherwise peace-centered movement, street protests break out, even shop looting, and Perveen struggles to get appropriate treatment for the body of a murdered Parsi college student, Freny, who'd recently sought Perveen's legal advice. The timing puts Perveen herself into danger—it's easy for men around her to assume that a woman walking alone out in the city is asking for the worst kind of trouble, and impossible for them to see her as a professional, or worth respecting at all. When she tries to stop the looting of a shop where she knows the staff, she becomes a target, attacked with both scorn and sexual threat.
Fortunately for Perveen, some Parsi men spot the trouble and tackle her assailants, telling her to run, and she actually gets a ride from a solicitor known to her family, who delivers her to the family's driver.
"You are returned, Alhamdulillah!" As Mustafa invoked thanks to Allah, his voice cracked with emotion. "Violence has swept the city ... You sari is torn. What happened?"
Perveen pulled the sari closer around her. "There were so many people. I was rushing in the street, and it must have happened then." ... All she wanted was to wash herself at home, to erase the memory of the brutal men. And hide under her own covers. ...
Mustafa's voice was firm. "Your father said on no account will you go anywhere but that hotel. And I'm coming in the car with you for protection."
What none of them could predict is that the European man who's caught Perveen's affection in an earlier book in the series might be at the same hotel. Even in her professional duties in the days ahead, what Perveen struggles to offer her family firm's legal clients puts her at further risk—especially when she probes the student's death further and begins to guess who's responsible.
Massey writes in swift, colorful scenes that sweep the action and danger along, drenched with period manners and struggles. If the dialogue is at times a bit stilted because of such formality, the pace never wavers, and Perveen's battle for self-determination is driven as powerfully as India's.
No need to have read the earlier two books of this series (The Widows of Malabar Hill, The Satapur Moonstone)—just plunge into this new release from Soho Crime, an imprint of Soho Press (publication June 1). Massey's skills are strengthening with each book, and this is definitely her best yet. But if THE BOMBAY PRINCE wakes you to wanting to know more about India's modern history, you'll want the other two titles for your shelf as well.
This promises to be a continued series well worth savoring!
PS: Looking for more mystery reviews, from cozy to very dark? Browse the Kingdom Books mysteries review blog here.
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