Sujata Massey is an award-winning and highly acclaimed mystery writer. Born in England to parents from India and Germany, she grew up mostly in St Paul, Minnesota. She holds a BA in Writing Seminars from Johns Hopkins University, and started her working life as a features reporter for the
Baltimore Evening Sun. After leaving the newspaper, she moved to Japan, where she studied Japanese, taught English and began writing her first novel,
The Salaryman's Wife. This novel became the first of many in the Rei Shimura mystery series, which has won the Agatha and Macavity awards, and been nominated for the Edgar, Anthony, and Mary Higgins Clark awards. Sujata has also written acclaimed historical novels like
The City of Palaces and, more recently,
A Murder on Malabar Hill, the first novel in the Perveen Mistry series. Her books have been published in more than eighteen countries. Currently, she is based near Washington, DC.
India, 1922. A curse seems to have fallen upon the royal family of Satapur, a princely kingdom tucked away in the lush Sahyadari mountains, where both the maharaja and his teenage son have met with untimely deaths. 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.
When a dispute arises between the royal ladies over the education of the young crown prince, a lawyer's counsel is required to settle the matter. Since the maharanis live in purdah, the one person who can help is Perveen Mistry, Bombay's only female lawyer. But Perveen arrives to find that the Satapur Palace is full of cold-blooded power play 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?
'A marvellously plotted, richly detailed series'
WASHINGTON POST
'Even better than the series' impressive debut'
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
'Perveen Mistry . . . is sure to join the leads of great mystery fiction'
SUSAN ELIA MACNEAL
'An astonishing heroine'
BAPSI SIDHWA
An engrossing read that brings together mystery, history and a tenacious lead.A marvellously plotted, richly detailed series.Massey does a marvellous job . . . As Mistry unravels the truth of who was at the bottom of the deaths, a full pageant of well fleshed-out characters hold centre stage and the reader is invested in them and the reasons behind their behaviour . . . Despite the quick pace and taut and crisp writing, the denouement comes as a surprise.Even better than the series' impressive debut.Bitter family rivalries, purloined jewellery and secret acts of evil coalesce . . . in this well-researched and convincing historical adventure.Finally, a true detective . . . With Perveen Mistry, writer Sujata Massey has created a Parsi sleuth who is as radical as she is believable.
The Satapur Moonstone is a flawless gem. Historical mysteries don't get any better than this. Sujata Massey takes us into a world that fascinates and entices, and she gives us a protagonist whose company is warm and welcoming.An astonishing heroine.
