In the interest of transparency, I only read one book this month. Thankfully, it was a really good one. The Satapur Moonstone is the second book in Sujata Massey’s Perveen Mistry series.
The series is set in 1920s India, where Perveen works as a lawyer in her father’s law firm. Her position as an independent, college-educated, professional woman is unusual in her society, but it gives her access to clients that male lawyers could never consider. In this installment of the series, Perveen is asked to help settle a dispute between female royalty one of the independent Indian states.
The mystery was well crafted, and I enjoyed its twists and turns. But what I really liked about this book was the character development. The character building that was done in the series’ first book (The Widows of Malabar Hill) isn’t forgotten. Instead, it is used to provide tension between Perveen and a newcomer in her life. That tension is not completely resolved by the end of the book, and I hope to see that thread continued in Book 3 of the series.
The other aspect of the book that seemed particularly well done was its depiction of the intricacies of political relationships in India at the time of British rule—not just the relationship between the British and Indian leaders but also the way the British presence influenced the relationships among Indian royalty in supposedly independent states. I have not done enough research to know how realistic Massey’s depiction is, but it felt real and as a reader, that’s all I ask for.