Perveen Mistry, the only female solicitor in Bombay, in 1922 falls into her fourth case at a fund raiser by the Mistress of Bhatia House. Sujita Massey gives the reader a compelling and complicated view of British Bombay with the various faiths and society levels. Miss Mistry takes on the case of a servant, an ayah, in the Bhatia household who is accused of seeking an abortion, but the lawyer cannot pin down witnesses or even the accuser. Then the master of Bhatia House dies under suspicious circumstances, there is a fire at Perveen's home and suspicious behavior among police, society mavens, and an Indian nawab's household. Complex plotting and a wonderful of Bombay society in the 1920's.

This book will be sure to delight fans of the series, as it carries on plots from earlier titles while also introducing a new mystery. It is clear from the writing how much research has gone into this book, and it is a welcome addition to the series.

The Mistress of Bhatia House is fourth in Massey’s mystery series set in 1920’s India with Bombay’s first female lawyer as the main character. Massey’s depiction of daily life is precise and rich. Given how much of this world is likely to be new to readers, Massey must bring it to life in detail. Occasionally this necessary information felt bulky, but given the depth required, Massey shows mastery of this inherent challenge. Mistress of Bhatia House develops a complicated plot involving a range of crimes and a compelling cast of villains and victims—sorting out which is which is a significant part of the book’s appeal. However, Massey’s vivid portrayal of the social limitations on women offers the most intensely arresting element. Massey’s “sleuth” is deprived of practicing law fully as she was trained to do. For example, it is illegal for her to address a judge in court. She must hire a man to present her cases in court. Watching lawyer Perveen Mistry navigate the strictures placed around her, without stepping outside the bounds of socially acceptable behavior, draws the reader’s sympathy and admiration. This theme is also portrayed through other women from the lowest social standing to that of a princess. Early in the novel, women’s lowly status is summed up by the one female obstetrician’s comment, “A female baby is born…the mother is told that her daughter didn’t survive. But the truth is, she’s a baby nobody can afford.” The multi-layered plot keeps the reader guessing and enjoyably engaged, and the overarching theme regarding women’s lives brings an unusually poignant emotional depth.

DNF - It may have helped if I'd read the first 3 books in this series; The Mistress of Bhatia House seemed focused on character and historic backgrounds, and doesn't fall into the mystery category (at least not by the midpoint). In short, it dragged to the point that I, who generally finished everything, gave up. The skilled use of language helped, but not enough to keep me engaged.

The mistress of Bhatia House is fourth in the Perveen Mistry series. In the book Perveen finds out by coincidence that a servant known to her is falsely accused of a crime and starts to help her.

The setting of the series, India in the 1920s, makes the series stand out from other thrillers, and the customs, clothes and food that are described are almost more interesting than the solving of the crime.

A strong theme in the novel are women’s rights. Perveen herself has trouble practising her profession because of her sex, but also the case of the falsely accused servant girl shows how vulnerable servants are.

This series gets better by each novel, and I’ll definitely keep reading.

Thank you Netgalley and publisher for the opportunity to review this novel.

Superb series! Perveen Mistry, a groundbreaking female lawyer in 1920's Bombay, is one of the most intriguing and realistic characters in any historical mystery series. With intelligent and vivid writing, this series will leave you desperate for the next entry in the complicated and fascinating life of Perveen Mistry!

This is the fourth story, and I certainly hope it is not the last. Massey has developed the character with imagination and authenticity, leaving much room for future stories.

In this story, Perveen again encounters injustice for women in a case she takes on for a servant woman wrongly jailed. While working on the case, Perveen also struggles with difficult home issues. Readers will find much to contemplate in this delicate and complex case.

THE MISTRESS OF BHATIA HOUSE by Sujata Massey (The Bombay Prince) is the latest in the historical mystery series featuring Perveen Mistry, a female solicitor in India. Massey masterfully evokes 1920s Bombay and the rampant prejudice and discrimination faced by women, whether poor servants, like Sunanda, or highly educated and professional, like Perveen. Accused of Garbhapaat, knowingly causing an abortion, Sunanda is jailed until, by chance, Perveen intervenes and offers respite at Mistry House. It is difficult to find a male barrister willing to represent Sunanda and tensions escalate between Perveen and her father, who is also a lawyer and her business partner. The mystery becomes more complicated when a rich donor to a women's hospital dies and multiple suspects turn to Perveen for guidance. The story is slow in places, but the echoes of today’s debates over women’s rights to make decisions about their own bodies cannot be ignored. Kirkus sums up THE MISTRESS OF BHATIA HOUSE well: "A complex whodunit that also provides a fascinating immersion in a bygone era."

The stories in the Perveen Mistry series by Sujata are always wildly compelling, and I learn a ton. The Mistress of Bhatia House focuses particularly on issues facing women's health at the time (many, many of which are still relevant today, regardless of place), both in the mystery and in the side plots. The fortunate thing for me as a reader who loves this series is that there were some distinctly unfinished threads that make me very hopeful for more stories to come.

“The Mistress of Bhatia House” is the latest installment in Sujata Massey’s fascinating series set in 1920s Bombay, and just as wonderful as the first three books. I love books that include maps of the city where the action takes place and books where you get a really clear sense of the setting; this series always delivers that. I also love how much the history and politics of British India and the relationships between different types of people comes through. In this book the protagonist, Perveen Mistry, the first (and only) female solicitor in Bombay is trying to serve her clients and fight for injustices, largely related to women. Her client is accused of having an abortion, and the circumstances of the crime are puzzling and complicated and eventually a series of (perhaps) connected crimes are unveiled. Meanwhile, the arrival of Perveen’s sister-in-law’s baby throws their household into unanticipated chaos and this subplot is very interesting. I’ve come to love this series—it is a perfect combination of historical fiction and mystery—and the recurring characters make every book a must-read. Thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for the opportunity to review this book.

“The Mistress of Bhatia House” is the fourth of Sujata Massey’s excellent Perveen Mistry novels, set in 1920s Bombay. The books feature a charming young woman who is the first female solicitor in the city. Polite, respectful and traditional, Perveen works with her father in her family’s law firm. Although she faces sexism at nearly every turn, she stands up for herself and others around her. She’s curious and open-minded to the swells of progress happening around her city, not infrequently thinking of another famous lawyer, who sits in a prison in Poona, Mohandas K. Gandhi.

This installment swirls around the building of a woman’s hospital and a shaky alliance between English and Indian participants. Perveen attends a fundraiser where she sees an Indian ayah, or nanny, bravely save a child, while seriously burning herself in the process. Perveen is shocked to see the woman, Sunanda, in prison for the crime of committing an abortion, several days later. She takes Sunanda’s case, who claims she couldn’t even have been pregnant, much less have had an abortion. “The police were such fools, Perveen thought. Why did they wish to investigate the business of abortion and menstruation? If the police truly wanted to protest women, they would arrest the family members who murdered newborn girls—a persistent problem all over British India and the princely states.” As Perveen supports Sunanda’s case and discovers how it may be connected to the women’s hospital, she’s also dealing with strife at her normally happy home where she lives with her mother, father and newly married brother and his wife, who’s just given birth. The normally sweet-natured women find themselves bickering with each other after the baby is born and Perveen finds herself bitterly longing for the simpler times before the baby came.

In the same way that Jane Austen taught us about eighteenth-century British marriage and property laws, Massey educates her reader on early twentieth-century British India, and the many ways it was set up to protect the colonizer and subjugate the Indian citizens. It’s clear that plenty of research goes into each novel and we’re given a refreshing point of view through the eyes of the non-colonizer. In selecting the subject of policing women’s bodies, Massey makes a strong statement about the current state of women’s health and independence, over a hundred years after Gandhi sat in a jail cell.

Massey fills these novels with exquisite details, including food and clothes. More than once I’ve gone searching the internet for a recipe or off to Devon Avenue for ingredients to create a tea she describes. She goes into great detail in fashion—whether it be silk saris or a Schiaparelli gown, and accessories, from Perveen’s leather briefcase by Swaine Adeney Brigg or the local heiress’ Vionnet handbag. The description of Perveen’s bedroom alone is divine, not to mention the adjacent garden-view veranda complete with a pet parrot that swoops in for fruit snacks, or her black-and-white tiled en suite bathroom. I can’t be the only one yearning for PBS to create an adaptation!

“The Mistress of Bhatia House”
By Sujata Massey
Soho House, 432 pages

Perveen Mistry, the only female solicitor in Bombay, returns for her fourth adventure, this one involving a young ayah (nanny) in a wealthy Indian household. The young woman is accused of inducing a miscarriage by drinking an herbal concoction. One of the attractions of this series is the atmosphere and descriptions of India in the early 20th century. There is a murder but it takes a backseat to social issues including the prescribed roles of women and the lack of legal recourse when someone commits a crime against them, status/social class, and prejudice. While the plots of the books in this series tend to be complicated and multi-faceted, I found the various threads of this story to be extremely complex. There are also a number of side plots, including Perveen's ongoing relationship with a young Englishman, issues within her family, and larger issues such as the re-districting of princely India lands. Read it for the descriptions and details.

I have read every book by Sujata Massey and she never ceases to astonish us with the range of her topics. It's an excellent summer read.

THE MISTRESS OF BHATIA HOUSE (Perveen Mistry 4) by Sujata Massey (pub date July 11!)

☕️👩‍⚖️💼🥻
4.75 STARS

✨ FOR FANS OF: Kate Quinn, Bangalore Detective’s Club, historical fiction & mysteries

⭐️WHAT IT’S ABOUT: At a lavish fundraiser party for the launch of a new women’s hospital, the grandson of Lord Bhatia, an influential aristocrat, is badly burned in an accident—but a young servant, Sunanda, rushes to save him. Instead of being lauded as a hero, Sunanda is dismissed from the household, and simultaneously, suspiciously charged with “child murder”—also known as abortion. Perveen Mistry takes Sunanda’s case & runs into twists, turns, & high risks that endanger the lives of nearly everyone around her.

WHAT I LIKED:
🌟Perveen, a 1920s Mumbai lawyer modeled on real-life figure Cornelia Sorabji, is an excellent character. she’s smart as a whip, takes no shit, & acts so realistically you feel like she’s someone you actually know! I love learning about Zoroastrianism through this series, a religion I’ve never seen represented in recent literature.
🌟 this series is so good & criminally underrated on bookstagram! This installment tackles abortion, motherhood, interracial relationships, gender, religion, the law, & the growing Indian Independence movement against the British Raj. Massey does this all while balancing an intricate plot but still doesn’t feel like it gets too “historically preachy.”
🌟 the Gulnaz subplot raised the stakes big time in this installment; I can’t see what happens in the next book!

WHAT I DIDN’T:
☁️ this book leans a bit long for my liking, but still, I enjoyed every minute of it.
☁️ MORE ALICE! MORE COLIN!

⭐️OVERALL: if you haven’t picked these up yet, I don’t know what you’re waiting for. it’s a bit hard to read this & not compare it to Harini Nagendra’s series (in that I think I like Sujata Massey’s series more eek!), but this is by far my favorite series I’ve read in a while.

thanks to @netgalley & the publisher @sohocrime for an advanced e-copy in exchange for an honest review!

‼️ Check trigger warnings, as always.

For my money, Sujata Massey's Perveen Mistry historical series is one of the best ones out there. This talented writer never fails to take me deep into 1920s Bombay, India, and keep me there throughout her story. The Mistress of Bhatia House is no exception. This fourth book in the series delves deep into women's issues and, as a result, may bore some readers to tears. I must be mellowing in my twilight years because once this topic would have bored me, too, but definitely not this time.

Perveen's personal and professional lives continue to grow. Now she's wanting to be the world's best aunty to her brother's new baby, and her thoughts are bittersweet as she faces the fact that she will never have children of her own. She's also in a clandestine relationship with a former colonial civil service officer, but her personal life often takes a backseat to being Bombay's only female solicitor. Trying to navigate the minefield of the Good Old Boys Club filled with both white British colonials and wealthy Indian males is no easy task.

There's a lot going on in The Mistress of Bhatia House, and trying to deduce the identity of the killer is no simple task, but no matter how strong the mystery was, I found myself more deeply invested in the women's issues in the India of the 1920s-- A country where infant mortality is high, and thirteen-year-old girls die from giving birth to too many babies. A country where most women have never even seen a doctor and a country where most physical assaults against women are never reported. Massey also does a marvelous job of portraying how the various religious groups coexist and the interactions between the castes.

If you like mysteries with strong female characters steeped in a specific time and place, I highly recommend The Mistress of Bhatia House. My mind is still with Perveen in Bombay, and I'm looking forward to the next book.

I love these novels, and inhale them. India is so alive here, and Perveen’s cases and family are alive and entertaining. These are tremendous books, and I eagerly await the next

Like spokes in a wheel, this one has it all.

Sujata Massey has widened the scope of this latest edition to her Perveen Mistry Series. Perveen is the first female solicitor in Bombay working at the Mistry House, a law office headed by her father. She's Oxford educated but is limited by Indian law as to what she can and cannot do as a female. Still, Perveen is constantly running against the grain in order to make inroads for women even within the barriers of 1922.

At present, Perveen is attending a fund raiser at the home of Uma Bhatia. Uma's father-in-law has donated land earmarked for the construction of a new hospital. Dr. Miriam Penkar, the only Indian OB GYN, will head the hospital. Perveen is there to deliver a donation from her sister-in-law, Gulnaz, who has just delivered her baby. Over fifty women are in attendance offering donations.

We'll observe an accident that takes place with Uma's son being burned and Sunanda, the child care ayah, saving the child while being burned herself. Keep an eye on Sunanda. She'll be falsely accused of a serious crime and taken into custody later. Perveen, limited in her access to the courts, will try everything in her power to free Sunanda. And that situation will deepen as this storyline unfolds.

Sujata Massey has laced this one with women's issues, social restrictions, prejudice, rape, and murder. Massey's female character of Perveen is believable without portraying her from the blueprints of a 2023 woman. She is cognizant of the laws and family dynamics of India in the 1920's. The Mistress of Bhatia can be read as a standalone. But do yourself a favor and check out some of the earlier books in this series. All are well done and satisfying.

I received a copy of this book through NetGalley for an honest review. My thanks to Soho Press and to Sujata Massey for the opportunity.

The Mistress of Bhatia House is another great Perveen Mistry mystery, full of Indian history and social commentary that applies just as much to today as it does to the time in which the story is set.

Perveen goes to a local fundraiser for a women's hospital in place of her sister-in-law, who just had a baby. While there, she witnesses a servant save a young boy from a fire. When that same servant is arrested and charged with procuring an abortion, Perveen volunteers to take her case pro bono. Meanwhile, at home, her sister-in-law Gulnaz seems to be struggling with post-partum depression and anxiety, and her brother is unable or unwilling to understand or help.

This book illuminates issues that women still struggle with - access to health care, rape (and that the victim is often seen as negatively as the attacker in the eyes of society), and lack of acknowledgement that women are equal members of society. Perveen is stymied several times in her pursuit of justice because she is a woman and therefore not able to speak in court to represent her client. While that is not the case in most countries now, there are still countries where women have no say in the running of the country and in what is acceptable for women to do in public or in private. The fact that a woman is being punished for drinking a tea that brings on your period (essentially a morning-after pill, and something women have used for millennia to prevent pregnancy), feels all too relevant in the post-Roe era in the United States. In addition, it is hard to read about post-partum depression and anxiety, knowing what we know now, and not feel for Gulnaz. While people are more aware now of the possibility of PPD/A, there still is a stigma about mental health and asking for help because motherhood is supposed to be this calling for all women and admitting you're struggling means you're not a "natural" mother.

As always, I really enjoyed Massey's writing and her discussion of women's issues while also offering a great mystery to solve. Thanks to Netgalley for the advance copy of this book.

Another delightful outing for Perveen Mistry. I got a copy of the first book in this series in a mystery box from a bookstore I love and have never looked back. I love the rich historical detail of these novels and I especially love that Sujata Massey does not shy away from some hard topics. She gives a fiercely feminist Perveen while also not taking her out of the context of her time and place. I love the whole Mistry family and their dynamic. Massey's descriptions make me feel like I can smell and hear Bombay ( I always end up looking up the dishes that are described in the book, though I am sure I couldn't fully replicate them).
Book four's plot largely revolves around Perveen taking the case of a young ayah or nanny who's been accused of committing an abortion. I felt real anger over the way women were treated at this time, though in many ways things don't seem so different now. Perveen is persistant as always and the resolution is very satisfying. And, for those who love certain secondary characters, there are several appearances by Alice and Colin. I for one am definitely rooting for Perveen and Colin!

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an eARC in return for a fair and honest review.

Although The Mistress of Bhatia House is the first one in the series of four that I’ve read, that really gave me no disadvantage. Sujata Massey has written a very good book that is filled with well-drawn characters and that revolves around an engaging plot. In The Mistress of Bhatia we observe the first female lawyer in Bombay take on a case to defend a young servant from a police charge of aborting herself. Massey expertly includes information the state of women’s control of their bodies and about the mixing and clashes of cultures in India in 1922 in such a way that although I never felt as if I was reading a textbook, I learned a great deal. The major disadvantage of reading a book in a series that is well-established is that back stories are not always made evident and the book ends with several loose ends. I look forward to reading the next entry in the series to find out how, or even if, those loose ends are tied up and, more importantly, to reading more work of a very fine author.

Everything I have ever read by Sujata Massey is always a treat and of the highest quality, and this book was no different. What sets her apart is her breathtaking prose, her excellent characterization, and the quality of her historical accuracy. Combine that with strong female heroine, a twisting, turning mystery, and the mystical enchanting India, I and you are swept away yet glued to your seat! Absolutely wonderful! I recommend all her books, but I believe this one is my favorite and her best yet! TEN STARS!