Sujata Massey brings us back to mid-1920s Bombay (Mumbai) in the fourth historical mystery featuring India’s first female lawyer, Perveen Mistry, in The Mistress of Bhatia House. Previous installments of the series have set up Perveen’s somewhat circumscribed world. As a woman, she’s prevented from taking the bar and representing clients in court, but she can draft contracts, write threatening legal letters, and meet with clients—especially women who are reluctant or unable to meet with a male lawyer. While the constraints chafe, especially in this latest installment, Perveen has gotten very good at finding her way around (or through) the limits placed on her gender, race, and religion.
The Mistress of Bhatia House opens with a party. Perveen, along with other leading lights of Bombay society, to celebrate the last round of fundraising for a planned women’s hospital. Perveen quickly picks up on the strife at Bhatia House—there are too many chefs in this particular kitchen—but even she’s surprised when an accident burns a child and his ayah. She’s even more surprised to learn when she returns to Bhatia House a few days later with additional donations for the planned hospital that the ayah, Sunanda, has been arrested on flimsy charges and fired from her position. Perveen marches straight from the House to the jail where the still-healing Sunanda has been incarcerated and gets her out on bail.
Perveen, as usual, cannot help but investigate why on earth anyone would want to send the gifted nanny to jail. Sunanda is a hero for helping to save her charge from terrible injury or even death; she ought to be swimming in rewards and recognition. Instead, someone has essentially tried to disappear the poor woman.
At the same time that she’s wading into Sunanda’s mystery, Perveen is also puzzled by the strange behavior of her sister-in-law, Gulnaz, who has just given birth to her first child. Modern readers will recognize postpartum depression and anxiety in Gulnaz’s insomniac fretting and paranoia. Perveen and her family, however, are helpless to calm Gulnaz’s fears that she isn’t maternal enough or that everything and anything could hurt her baby girl. Seeing Gulnaz and Sunanda in juxtaposition with each other brings up some very interesting questions about what our societies expect of new mothers and mothers in general, who may have suddenly found themselves in the position of keeping alive a fragile human who can only cry to ask for what they want. It’s a wonder our species is here at all.
With some help from the lovely Colin Sandringham, Perveen’s impossible love (due to her status as separated-but-not-divorced), Perveen pushes deep into the mystery surrounding Sunanda to discover the truth, mete some justice, and put things to right once more. The Mistress of Bhatia House has some unfinished business left at its conclusion but, overall, it’s another excellent episode in the series.
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley, for review consideration.
