Nominated for the Lefty Award for Best Historical Mystery Can Perveen help a suffering family when her own is in danger? When Freny’s death appears suspicious, Perveen knows she can’t rest until she sees justice done. But Bombay is erupting: as armed British secret service march the streets, rioters attack anyone with perceived British connections, and desperate shopkeepers destroy their own wares so they will not be targets of racial violence. Feeling guilty for failing to have helped Freny in life, Perveen steps forward to assist Freny’s family in the fraught dealings of the coroner’s inquest. But she’s horrified by the death of Freny Cuttingmaster, an eighteen-year-old female Parsi student, who falls from a second-floor gallery just as the prince’s grand procession is passing by her college.įreny had come for a legal consultation just days before her death, and what she confided makes Perveen suspicious that her death was not an accident. The Indian subcontinent is chafing under British rule, and Bombay solicitor Perveen Mistry isn’t surprised when local unrest over the royal arrival spirals into riots. Edward VIII, Prince of Wales and future ruler of India, is arriving in Bombay to begin a fourmonth tour. Sujata Massey is back with this third installment to the Agatha and Mary Higgins Clark Award-winning series set in 1920s Bombay. The Bombay Prince is a great mystery that should also appeal to readers of historical fiction.Īsk for your custom signed bookplate - while they last!īombay’s first female lawyer, Perveen Mistry, is compelled to bring justice to the family of a murdered female Parsi student just as Bombay’s streets erupt in riots to protest British colonial rule. Did she die of suicide or was she pushed? Will Perveen be able to figure out what’s going on before chaos ensues from rioters? And more importantly, will she figure out how she feels about the attentions of Colin Sandringham, the agent protecting the prince? I have enjoyed the two previous volumes in this series, but I particularly loved how Massey ratcheted up the tension here with the burgeoning independence movement. More disturbing still, Perveen knows the student, who visited her earlier in the week, asking for advice.

But right before the appearance, a Student Union member disrupts the festivities with a call for Indian independence, and this incident is followed by the appearance of a young woman’s body, dead from a fall. A celebratory parade travels right past Woodburn College, where Mistry’s dear friend Alice Hobson-Jones teaches mathematics, and Perveen has been invited to view from the stands. It’s 1921 and all of Bombay is readying for the visit of Edward VIII, Prince of Wales.

The bombay prince by sujata massey