The Satapur Moonstone by Sujata Massey

Published: May 4th, 2019 by Soho Crime

Genre: Historical Mystery

Format: Hardcover, 384 pages, Library

Rating: 4 stars

Publisher's Summary:

India, 1922: It is rainy season in the lush, remote Sahyadri mountains, where the princely state of Satapur is tucked away. A curse seems to have fallen upon Satapur's royal family, whose maharaja died of a sudden illness shortly before his teenage son was struck down in a tragic hunting accident. The state is now ruled by an agent of the British Raj on behalf of Satapur's two maharanis, the dowager queen and her daughter-in-law.

The royal ladies are in a dispute over the education of the young crown prince, and a lawyer's counsel is required. However, the maharanis live in purdah and do not speak to men. Just one person can help them: Perveen Mistry, Bombay's only female lawyer. Perveen is determined to bring peace to the royal house and make a sound recommendation for the young prince's future, but she arrives to find that the Satapur palace is full of cold-blooded power plays and ancient vendettas. Too late, she realizes she has walked into a trap. But whose? And how can she protect the royal children from the palace's deadly curse?

My Thoughts:

This is a fun continuation of the Perveen Mistry series. Once again Perveen must head to a place that will only allow women. She's in luck since she's India's only female lawyer. 

This story was set up a bit differently than The Widows of Malabar Hill. In that one we get flashbacks to Perveen before she became a lawyer and those slowly catch up to her in the present. We get a lot of backstory and history and it was presented well. In The Satapur Moonstone, there are no flashbacks. A lot of the history and backstory to the setting come out a bit clunky. We "hear" a lot of Perveen's thoughts that don't seem really relevant to the story but come at as cultural or religious information. Those thoughts and explanations took me out of the story more often than I liked. I feel like the explanations and historical information could've been presented differently.

Perveen gets a romantic interest in Colin. He's British but he's intelligent and kind-hearted, just what she's looking for...well, she's technically unavailable, but let's hope that gets resolved in a future story!

The mystery was interesting. I liked learning more about the small ruling maharaja kingdoms before Indian independence. It's a slow burn but one that is thoroughly rewarding. Massey's series is character and world-driven. The mystery is more a way to talk about India's rich history and customs. She also does not shy away from the unfair treatment of women, children, and the caste society in India. And she has no problem tackling British colonization and the good and the bad that came out of it. It's a fantastic series and am looking forward to the next installation.

*read as part of the Book Challenge by Erin 11.0