SUJATA MASSEY A Murder at Malabar Hill. Reviewed by Ann Skea
A Murder at Malabar Hill is the first instalment of Sujata Massey’s crime series set in 1920s Bombay featuring lawyer Perveen Mistry.
Bombay, February 1921. Perveen Mistry is about to enter Mistry House, where she works as a solicitor in her father’s law firm. Near the doorway she encounters this unkempt stranger:
Assuming the man was a sad-sack client, Perveen glanced down, not wanting him to feel overly scrutinized. The idea of a woman solicitor was a shock to many. But when Perveen glanced down, she was disconcerted to see the man wasn’t poor at all. His thin legs were covered by black stockings, and his feet were laced into scuffed black leather brogues.
The only place men wore British shoes and stockings with their dhotis was Calcutta, about twelve hundred miles away. Calcutta, a city that would always remind her of Cyrus.
Perveen is immediately anxious, and when she speaks to the man, he rushes away. Later, from her office window, she sees him again loitering across the road and goes down to confront him, but when she asks him, ‘Do you know Cyrus Sodawalla?’, he flees.
So, already there is a mystery. Cyrus Sodawalla and Calcutta clearly have a special and disturbing meaning for Perveen, but it is not until later in the book that we learn of the events in her past that she had hoped she could forget.
Perveen, as a cutting from a local newspaper reveals, is Bombay’s first woman solicitor. But Bombay’s courts do not yet allow women advocates to approach the bench, so she has never appeared in court. Her father, too, has thought that his clients ‘needed a gentle introduction to the prospect of female representation’, so she is helping him with paperwork and research on family law issues. Her current task is to examine proposed changes to the estate settlement of Omar Farid, a wealthy Muslim textile-mill owner who has died of cancer at the age of forty-five, leaving three widows who follow the Muslim custom of strict seclusion.
Perveen is Parsi (a member of a group of Indian-born Zoroastrians whose ancestors came to India from Persia) but she has studied Mohammedan law and understands the customary Muslim dower practices. Her concern about the proposed changes, outlined in documents presented by the trustee of Farid’s estate, is that Farid’s widows appear to be signing away their dower rights.
‘Isn’t it strange,’ she asks her father when they discuss these changes, ‘that all three women wish to make a change against their own interests – and two of the signatures are almost identical?’
In addition, one of the signatures appears to be that of a woman who, only seven months earlier, signed her marriage certificate with an X, indicating that she had never learned to write.
So, here is another mystery.
Because they live in strict seclusion, a man would only be allowed to talk to Farid’s widows through a purdah screen. But, as a woman, and a lawyer, Perveen is ideally placed to enter their part of the house and talk to them directly. Her father is doubtful but she is determined:
Pappa, you own the only law firm in Bombay with an employee who can communicate directly with secluded women. Why not take advantage of the greatly underused asset that is your daughter?
So Perveen meets the widows in their own home and as she gets to know each of them and gains their confidence, she (and the reader) learn much about their lives in seclusion, about their marriages and their shared lives with their husband, and about the inevitable rivalries between them. She learns, too, that each of them has a secret, and that the middle wife, Sakina, has a close relationship with Farid’s trustee that underlies the mystery of the proposed changes to the estate and leads, eventually, to his murder.
This murder does not happen until one third of the way through the book, and there are many suspects, but it is Perveen who sorts out the various tangled and often broken threads and reveals the identity of the murderer.
The mystery of Perveen’s own anxiety about the strange man outside Mistry House is gradually revealed in chapters which turn back to Bombay in 1916, when Perveen was secretly wooed and, after much family negotiation, wed to Cyrus Sodawalla. Her vastly changed life as a wife living with her in-laws in Calcutta begins well. She tries hard to maintain her independence, but it becomes increasingly difficult and the forced imposition of the ancient practice of monthly seclusion during her menses is a shock that turns into a nightmare. This is not the only horror she has to face in Calcutta, and the danger of it all resurfacing is ever-present.
Easily and appropriately woven into the story is a great deal of information about India, Indian cultures and customs, Indian food, the beliefs and practices of the various religions in Indian society and, especially, the difficulties of studying and becoming an educated and independent woman in India in the early 20th century. Perveen’s harrowing experiences as the only female student in Bombay’s Government Law School, the animosity and vindictiveness of the male fellow-students and the lecturers who do not think she should be there, lead her to abandon her studies.
Her later studies at Oxford University not only provide her with her qualification as a lawyer, but foster her independence and provide her with an English friend with whom she is reunited in Bombay. This special friendship with Alice, the daughter of a British diplomat who is special councillor to the British governor of Bombay, adds another dimension to the picture of life in India in 1921. Alice, Sir David Hobson-Jones and his wife Lady Gwendolyn, live in a very secure, modern, ‘giant vanilla-coloured bungalow’ that happens to overlook the ‘sprawling Indo-Saracen bungalow’ and extensive gardens of the Farid residence. And Alice, who is a mathematician, turns out to be of invaluable help to Perveen in some very dangerous encounters in the home of Farid’s wives and children.
A Murder at Malabar Hill is enjoyable light reading, an interesting immersion in Indian life and culture, and a well-plotted murder mystery. Advertised as something which would be enjoyed by fans of Phrynne Fisher, it certainly has the right ingredients for a popular TV series, and it has already won the Agatha Award and the Mary Higgins Clark Award. A small taste of a second Perveen Mistry story provided at the end of the book suggests that this is the start of what promises to be a memorable series.
Sujata Massey Murder at Malabar Hill Allen & Unwin 2020 PB 416pp $29.99
Dr Ann Skea is a freelance reviewer, writer and an independent scholar of the work of Ted Hughes. She is author of Ted Hughes: The Poetic Quest (UNE 1994). Her work is internationally published and her Ted Hughes webpages (//ann.skea.com/) are archived by the British Library.
We have a copy of Murder at Malabar Hill to give away! To go in the draw simply email editors@newtownreviewofbooks.com.au with ‘Malabar’ in the subject line and your name and address in the body of the email by midnight tonight, Tuesday 28 January 2020. As we cannot afford to post giveaways overseas, entries from Australian residents only please.
And you can buy Murder at Malabar Hill from Abbey’s at a 10% discount by quoting the promotion code NEWTOWNREVIEW here or you can buy it from Booktopia here.
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