Bombay, 1921: Perveen Mistry, the daughter of a respected Zoroastrian family, has just joined her father's law firm, becoming one of the first female lawyers in India. Armed with a legal education from Oxford, Perveen also has a tragic personal history that makes her especially devoted to championing and protecting women's rights. Mistry Law is handling the will of Mr. Omar Farid, a wealthy Muslim mill owner who has left three widows behind. But as Perveen goes through the papers, she notices something strange: all three have signed over their inheritance to a charity. What will they live on if they forefeit what their husband left them? Perveen is suspicious. The Farid widows live in purdah: strict seclusion, never leaving the women's quarters or speaking to any men. Are they being taken advantage of by an unscrupulous guardian? Perveen tries to investigate and realizes her instincts about the will were correct when tensions escalate to murder. It's her responsibility to figure out what really happened on Malabar Hill, and to ensure that nobody is in further danger.

The highly anticipated follow-up to the critically acclaimed novel The Widows of Malabar Hill . India, 1922: It is rainy season in the lush, remote Sahyadri mountains, where the princely state of Satapur is tucked away. A curse seems to have fallen upon Satapur’s royal family, whose maharaja died of a sudden illness shortly before his teenage son was struck down in a tragic hunting accident. The state is now ruled by an agent of the British Raj on behalf of Satapur’s two maharanis, the dowager queen and her daughter-in-law. The royal ladies are in a dispute over the education of the young crown prince, and a lawyer’s counsel is required. However, the maharanis live in purdah and do not speak to men. Just one person can help Perveen Mistry, Bombay’s only female lawyer. Perveen is determined to bring peace to the royal house and make a sound recommendation for the young prince’s future, but she arrives to find that the Satapur palace is full of cold-blooded power plays and ancient vendettas. Too late, she realizes she has walked into a trap. But whose? And how can she protect the royal children from the palace’s deadly curse?

India’s only female lawyer, Perveen Mistry, is compelled to bring justice to the family of a murdered female Parsi student just as Bombay’s streets erupt in riots to protest British colonial rule. Sujata Massey is back with this third installment to the Agatha and Mary Higgins Clark Award-winning series set in 1920s Bombay. November, 1921. Edward VIII, Prince of Wales and future ruler of India, is arriving in Bombay to begin a four-month tour. The Indian subcontinent is chafing under British rule, and Bombay solicitor Perveen Mistry isn’t surprised when local unrest over the royal arrival spirals into riots. But she’s horrified by the death of Freny Cuttingmaster, an eighteen-year-old female Parsi student, who falls from a second-floor gallery just as the prince’s grand procession is passing by her college. Freny had come for a legal consultation just days before her death, and what she confided makes Perveen suspicious that her death was not an accident. Perveen, who strongly identified with Freny—another young Parsi woman fighting hard against the confines of society’s rules and expectations—feels terribly guilty for failing to help her. Perveen steps forward to assist Freny’s family in the fraught dealings of the coroner’s inquest, and when Freny’s death is ruled a murder, Perveen knows she can’t rest until she sees justice done. But Bombay is erupting: as armed British secret service march the streets, rioters attack anyone with perceived British connections and desperate shopkeepers destroy their own wares so they will not be targets of racial violence. Can Perveen help a suffering family when her own is in danger?

Bombay’s only female solicitor, Perveen Mistry, grapples with class divisions, sexism, and complex family dynamics as she seeks justice for a mistreated young woman in this thrilling fourth installment in Sujata Massey’s Agatha and Mary Higgins Clark Award–winning series. Bombay, 1920s. At a lavish fundraiser party for the launch of a new women’s hospital, the grandson of Lord Bhatia, an influential aristocrat, is badly burned in an accident—but a young servant, Sunanda, rushes to save him. Instead of being lauded as a hero, Sunanda is dismissed from the household, and simultaneously, suspiciously charged with “child murder”—also known as abortion. Perveen Mistry, Bombay’s only female solicitor, cannot stand by while this heroine is mistreated and takes her on as a client. Perveen goes as far as inviting Sunanda to live with the Mistrys, as Sunanda’s family has put her out of the house in shame at her supposed crime. The Mistry home is full of tension, as Perveen’s sister-in-law, who has just given birth, is struggling with new motherhood, and Perveen’s father is less than happy to have a disgraced servant under his roof. Perveen herself is going through personal turmoil as she navigates a societally taboo relationship with a handsome librarian. When the Mistrys’ servant residence is set aflame, Perveen realizes just how much is at stake in this case: has someone extremely powerful framed Sunanda to cover up another crime? Will Perveen be able to prove Sunanda’s innocence without endangering her own family? Sujata Massey has returned with another expertly researched and chillingly prescient exploration of 1920s Bombay.

A movie censor murdered, a leading lady vanished—the glamour and intrigue of India’s silent film era come to life in the thrilling fifth installment of the award-winning Perveen Mistry series. This twisty dive into the beginnings of Bollywood is perfect for fans of immersive historical mysteries. India, 1922: Perveen Mistry, the only female lawyer in Bombay, is on the verge of securing her biggest client Champa Films, a movie studio run by director Subhas Ghoshal and his wife, Rochana, the hottest box office ticket in Indian cinema. In the public eye, Rochana is notorious for her beauty and her daring stunts—behind the scenes, she has recently left the Calcutta studio that made her famous, and the studio owner is enraged by what he claims is a breach of contract. Rochana needs Perveen’s legal help to extricate Champa Films from the impending controversy. With her work cut out for her, Perveen attends a screening party at the Champa Films’ mansion-cum-studio to study Rochana’s glamorous world. She brings her film-fanatic best friend, Alice Hobson-Jones, the white English daughter of the British Raj governor, as her companion. But in the aftermath of the party, one of the party guests, a Bombay film censor, is found dead on the property. To make matters worse, Rochana has disappeared. Now with a different legal obligation to her clients—to protect them in the face of a developing murder case—Perveen begins to investigate, peeling back the glitz to reveal a salacious web of blackmail, deceit, and romantic affairs. Perveen has her own her relationship with a handsome former civil service officer, which is becoming harder to hide by the day. For the first time in their friendship, Alice seems to be keeping a secret from Perveen, too, and Perveen begins to suspect that Alice is hiding key information about the night of the murder. Will Perveen be able to detangle the truth from lies while protecting herself—and her closest friend?