This writer combines mystery with history
Author Sujata Massey’s latest, A Murder on Malabar Hill, follows the life of young Perveen Mistry in the 1920s. Devoted to the cause of women’s rights, Mistry joins her father’s prestigious law firm to become one of India’s finest lawyers. When the firm is handed the execution of the will of Omar Farid, a wealthy mill owner, a curious provision that could disinherit Farid’s three widows, arouses Mistry’s suspicions. What happens next forms the rest of the novel. Inspired by strong women role models, Massey thought a lawyer would be the “perfect heroine” for A Murder on Malabar Hill.
“For my earlier book, City of Palaces, set in the 1930s, I spent a lot of time researching on women in early 20th century India. I’d saved an article on Cornelia Sorabji (India’s first female lawyer). It was good to know what women were doing then. Few years on, I decided to write another book, and this time I would combine mystery with history,” she shares.
However, the author, whose popular Rei Shimura (schoolteacher and amateur sleuth) series has won the prestigious Agatha and Macavity awards, isn’t against writing from a male point of view. She says, “I’m comfortable writing about women and their stories.”
With this book being set in a completely different era, a lot of research went into putting the characters together, shares Massey, who wrote her first novel, The Salaryman’s Wife, in Japan and is currently based in Washington DC. “The fun part was coming to India and walking through the places I think should be in the book — the Mumbai court, a 19th century law firm, and the University of Bombay (Mumbai). I had been there before, but hadn’t paid attention like a writer,” recalls Massey, adding that the research included spending time with Parsis, learning about their customs, and visiting Iranian cafés.