Crime is one of literature’s most versatile and evolving genres which can take the reader on a winding path of discovery. Stories centered around forensics, criminal investigations, and moral and ethical dilemmas have kept readers engaged for years, especially with the additional layer of mystery and suspense, and the unexpected plot twists we never see coming. Personally, when it comes to a good whodunit, I enjoy the light touch of a cozy mystery, with an amateur sleuth who declines the need to mind their business and is determined to get to the bottom of a mystery, often against numerous odds. 

This was one of the many things that drew me to Sujata Massey’s Perveen Mistry series. Four books, set in 1920s India, centered around Perveen Mistry, a young woman who breaks existing cultural conventions and trains as a lawyer, but faces a myriad of barriers to her ability to practice. It is in the middle of this that she finds herself in situations where her sleuthing skills come into play as she seeks justice for the disenfranchised. The first book, The Widows of Malabar Hill was published in 2018, this was closely followed by The Satapur Moonstone (2019), then The Bombay Prince (2021) and the most recent installment in the series is The Mistress of Bhatia House (2023). Each book provides a different flavor when it comes to confronting social issues while solving a mystery. It is a perfect blend that leaves the reader satisfied to see justice served but also opens a window to a bygone time that is preserved through thoughtful writing.

Sujata Massey’s body of work, which has earned her multiple awards, includes novels, novellas and short stories. She and I recently had a conversation about the Perveen Mistry series, the genesis of the character’s creation, her research process, and the delights of writing.

Sujata Massey

Jola: Where did the inspiration to create Perveen Mistry’s character come from? What came first, did you decide to create Perveen and then build the narrative around her or were you intrigued by the time period – the 1920s – and decide that you needed to create a character and build a narrative around that time?

Sujata: Perveen was inspired by India’s first woman solicitor, Cornelia Sorabji. I learned the name from an Indian media article I’d read around 2009 talking about this remarkable woman who remained unmarried her whole life and had a challenging law career from the 1890s through 1930s. I printed out the article and saved it in a file where I kept biographical articles about significant women in 19th and 20th century history. I didn’t give the article another thought until 2015, when an editor inquired whether I might write a mystery series set in India. I loved the idea and knew that I wanted it to be a historical series, because I had already heavily researched early 20th century Indian history for an earlier novel (The Sleeping Dictionary, 2013). I liked the idea of having a woman lawyer solve the mysteries and looked at Cornelia’s family background and types of work experience as inspiration for Perveen’s adventures.

Jola: What was your research process for writing the Perveen Mistry series? As you conducted your research, did you encounter any surprises? Were there any challenges and how did you overcome those? 

Sujata: I start out with daydreaming, then a lot of reading, which includes history books, scholarly articles, and articles from archives. I try to find experts in areas where I need to have questions answered, such as colonial law and medicine, and I float questions to them to make sure that the framework for Perveen’s legal investigation, and the events in the book I’m planning make sense. The largest challenge is that I didn’t go to law school and am writing about a lawyer’s work. Fortunately I’ve met many lawyers who answer my questions about courtroom procedure and much more.

Jola: So, did you set out planning to write a mystery series? Did you already have the idea for The Satapur Moonstone by the time you were writing The Widows of Malabar Hill? 

Sujata: I always liked reading mysteries and I thought breaking into mystery fiction might be easier from a publishing standpoint, and also quite fun for me. Before the Perveen Mistry series, I wrote a mystery series set in modern Japan. I lived in Japan during the 1990s and it turned out that this country captured many people’s imagination at the time the books came out, the late 1990s through 2015. So having had that prior experience in mystery, and also in a standalone historical fiction book  with The Sleeping Dictionary, I decided to combine the two loves and write historical mystery. I got the idea for The Satapur Moonstone when I had gone back to India to fact-check scenes and details for the first Perveen novel, The Widows of Malabar Hill. It’s very common for me to get an idea for a subsequent book toward the end stage of writing the first one. I have trouble holding too many ideas in my head at once. 

Jola: Throughout the series we see Perveen work through barriers to access as she tries to establish herself as a woman in a profession that at the time was dominated by men. What barriers to access have you been faced with in your writing career, specifically with introducing the reading world to a unique character like Perveen?

Sujata: Yes, Perveen has barriers to studying law while in Bombay, India, and to getting an academic degree when she goes to Oxford, England. She’s not entitled to a divorce because of the laws at the time, so she also has a barrier for finding happiness in a committed relationship. Despite all this, I think it’s a very cheerful, upbeat series about empowerment. 

During the 1980s, the era when I graduated college, and through the 1990s, very few novels were published by writers of color. There were a few unicorn bestselling standouts, but many editors would think it did not make sense to publish more than one book per season by a writer who was African American or Asian. The writer’s difference would be magnified in promotion, and the books were almost always about deprivation. Also, some of my writing peers did not use an Asian surname for fear of readers assuming their books were set in a foreign country. I remember an editor saying to an audience of writers and fans that books set in foreign countries didn’t sell, except for those in England, France, and Italy. I was quite disheartened because I had finished a manuscript set in Japan. 

Fortunately I won a contest for unpublished writers sponsored by a prestigious mystery convention called Malice Domestic. Because I could say I’d won a Malice award, agents were ready to read my work. I was fortunate to submit to an agent who liked that convention and who was not afraid of foreign settings. She sold my first book, The Salaryman’s Wife, to a powerful editor at HarperCollins who was a specialist in the kind of amateur sleuth mysteries that Malice Domestic celebrated. That was 1997, and I was off and running.  

By 2015, the picture had changed quite a bit, and some publishers were actively looking for books set outside the United States and with themes that mean a lot to me, like feminism and critical thinking about British colonialism.

Jola: What is the writing process like when you are working on a book series? How do you keep track of the characters and events to ensure that there is consistency in the storytelling from book to book? What do you enjoy most about the writing process?

Sujata: The writing process is not usually fun; I struggle to think of the next thing I want to say. However, I have outlines for chapters, and if I look at the outline, it helps me stay somewhat on track. Similarly I have a list of character names, although I am always forgetting eye color and details like that. So I often flip back to older books when I am writing new ones. I enjoy revision more than first draft writing, especially when I know I’ve deepened a scene by describing characters’ emotions more deeply and showing more visuals of the historic setting.

Jola: A lot of writers admit to having a routine that they adhere to as part of their writing life? Do you have one and what is it? 

Sujata: I’d like to say that I write every morning, but I probably write four mornings a week, and sometimes do extra time in the afternoon. I have good energy at a lot of different times of the day; I can’t write hungry and I can’t write tired. I usually don’t write for more than three hours unless I’m on deadline, a time that my brain becomes supercharged.

Jola: We have seen Perveen go through some exciting adventures in the series. What can you tell our readers about what to expect in the next installment?

Sujata: The next book is very playful and humorous; it’s set in the early film world of Bombay, when there were a lot of female action film stars. This book doesn’t have a title yet, but it will come out in 2025.