The Bombay Prince

THE BOMBAY PRINCE is third volume of an award-winning series about a woman solicitor Perveen Mistry, practicing in early twentieth-century India. Sujata Massey's Perveen Mistry series is loosely inspired by the life of India's actual first woman solicitor.returnreturnIn this instalment, Perveen Mistry is approached by a young woman attending a coeducational college in Bombay. The woman belongs to India's Parsi cultural minority, like Perveen, and wants to know if she can avoid her school’s participation in the pageantry surrounding a visit from Edward, Prince of Wales, soon due to arrive on a tour of a part of the empire he expects to rule one day. She is dressed in a plain homespun sari, signaling her allegiance to the independence campaign led by Mahatma Gandhi, and she lays out her dilemma: the school requires her presence in the stands as the prince passes by, and she doesn’t want to endanger her education, which her parents have sacrificed to provide, but she feels morally obliged to boycott the event. Perveen advises her to read the school regulations and find an acceptable way to absent herself. Since it’s not really a legal matter, she sends the girl on her way without charging her.returnreturnThe student attends the school where Perveen’s dear friend, Alice Hobson-Jones, teaches math. Perveen joins her friend in the stands – conflicted herself about her support for the independence movement, but anxious enough about the young student’s decision that she wants to meet her again. As the prince passes by, another student dashes into the procession as a protest and is immediately apprehended and beaten, though Perveen tries to intervene. After the oblivious royal tourist has passed, they are urgently asked to come to an emergency situation inside the school grounds. It’s the young woman who consulted with Perveen. She appears to have fallen from an upper story and died. The solicitor is experienced enough with death to know it was no accident, and likely wasn’t a suicide. Because she feels responsible for the Parsi girl and her bereaved family, Perveen begins to investigate, though her activities are hindered by the violence that has overtaken the city as protests against the empire erupt.returnreturnAs in her previous Perveen Mistry mysteries, Massey does an impressive job of evoking 1920s India in a manner that avoids both anachronisms and information dumps. She respects her readers enough to include details of daily life and the customs of the Parsi minority community without over-explaining them, instead inviting readers into the world she has built from research and imagination - though there is a glossary for the curious. The character of Perveen, as a ground-breaking professional woman, never veers into modernity but continues to be the meticulous and culturally cautious but conscientious person she has been throughout the series.returnreturnThe research that Massey evidently conducted into the life of Cornelia Sorabji, the historical first Indian woman solicitor and the first woman admitted to the Indian bar is impressive. So is Massey's grasp of the gender roles assigned to women of different religious traditions in the India of the time. It pays off in verisimilitude.returnreturnThe supporting characters are well-drawn, from the gawky but intelligent Englishwoman Alice Hobson-Jones, to an American journalist whose casual but determined reporting style brings panache to the scene. The mystery is solid, with many potential suspects, and the pacing is deliberate, allowing space for readers to become saturated in the historical milieu, though it picks up dramatically in the final scenes.returnreturnAll in all, THE BOMBAY PRINCE is another fine installment in a well-researched and vividly rendered series. Wherever Perveen Mistry goes next, readers are sure to follow.