The Satapur Moonstone.
Sujata Massey.
Allen & Unwin. 2020. 349 pp.
ISBN 978 1 76-52 942 0.
Having solved the mystery of a murder at Malabar Hill and demonstrated her usefulness in dealing with women who observe purdah, Purveen Mistry, the first woman lawyer in Bombay, has been commissioned by the British administrators of the district to investigate the reasons for this dispute.
Purveen resents the continuance of British rule and administration in India, and she has to hide her nationalist beliefs and her admiration for Gandhi when she is persuaded to accept this commission from the British for her Father's law firm. Her feminist leanings, too, are clear. When offering her the job, Sir David Hobson-Jones, one of the Bombay Governor's chief advisers, mentions that the British Agent in Satapur was responsible for the well-being of the royal children:
"What children? You only mentioned Prince Jiva Rao."
"He has a little sister, but I do not know her name."
Purveen didn't like the way he had almost forgotten about the princess, nor that he had labeled the young maharaja's mother a widow, when she should have been called a queen. Pointedly, she asked, "What is the maharani's name?"
She is also concerned when she discovers, on arrival at the bungalow of Satapur's British Agent, Colin Sandringham, that he is a bachelor. This is where she must stay during her investigation but...
Now her name was written in the guest book. There was a chance this evidence of her staying under a single-man's roof could spread all around Poona and Bombay. It could ruin her name.
Purveen's first visit to the palace does not go well. After a frightening, stormy, and accident-filled journey through the jungle by palanquin, she arrives wet and disheveled and is turned away at the palace gate. She gains admittance by sending in one of the gifts she has brought for the royal women: a moonstone pendant.
This leads to a very strange meeting with the prince's elderly and autocratic grandmother:
"How did you get my pendant?" the rajmata asked again...
"It is from France," Purveen added. She hoped she wouldn't be forced to admit another person had purchased it and passed it on to her because she hadn't thought ahead about gifts.
"From France?" she said raising eyebrows that were thick and surprisingly brown given her white hair. "My son always said it was the country he most wished to visit. But this is no French stone. It's my very own moonstone given by my favourite aunt as one of my wedding present... I know this is my pendant, the very one that has been lost for sixteen years."
The moonstone pendant and its origins are just one of the keys to explaining the mysteries of the Satapur palace.
Purveen has already seen the letters the royal women have written to Colin Sandringham asking for help in resolving their dispute. The prince's mother, Maharani Mirabai, has stated in her letter that she is concerned for the physical safety of her young son. And when Purveen meets the royal women, the prince and his younger sister, their elderly tutor and their powerful uncle, it is soon clear that there is more than just power play between the two women going on.
She discovers there are serious questions about the nature of the death of prince's 13-year-old elder brother. He is said to have gone missing on a tiger hunt led by their uncle, Prince Swaroop, and was found dead the next day, seemingly mauled by a leopard or tiger. And there are questions, too, about the death of princes' father, which had been attributed to Cholera.
Strange things begin to happen. At the palace, a beloved pet monkey is poisoned, and Purveen narrowly avoids the same fate. When she returns to the British Agent's house after her first palace visit, her bedroom is invaded while she sleeps and her camera is stolen. Then the crown prince suddenly vanishes, and Purveen is accused of kidnapping him. She returns to the palace to help in the search and becomes trapped there. And when she manages to escape, things get very dangerous for her. The rough jungle surounding the palace, and her doubts about who is trustworthy and who is not, add to the suspense.
Sujata Massey brings the many people in this book to life and manages deftly to indicate Purveen's strengths and her weaknesses. She also provides plenty of unusual characters whose actions rouse suspicion, including Prince Swaroop, who would inherit the throne should his nephew die; the palace fool, Aditya, who holds a strange place in the affections of the dowager maharani; the wealthy, internationally travelled, mixed-marriage couple, Yazad and Vandana Mehta—especially Vandana, who once lived at the palace, and who had provided Purveen with the gifts she took for the royal women; and a surly and secretive British-employed engineer, Roderick Ames, who looks Indian but speaks with a Welsh accent.
Meeting the Mehtas and Roderick Ames for the first time at the British Agent's bungalow:
Purveen thought this was like a masquerade party. She had met a woman with a short, Western hairstyle and an Indian background; a Parsi man who was married to a Hindu; and a man with an English name who had Indian bone structure and colouring. And bringing them together was a casual young man who called everyone by their first names.
This casual man is Colin Sandringham. He, too, is an unusual character. He dresses "more like an explorer than a diplomat," has a false leg, and learns Yoga from his Brahmin servant, Rama. He also recognizes Purveen as the young woman who, with her English friend, Alice, once played a hand of bridge with him in a mixed party when they were all studying at Oxford University. Purveen does not remember him, but he becomes her friend and confidant, and by the end of the book their friendship looks very likely to be continued. Purveen, however, does not know if the violent husband she fled from years before is still alive in Calcutta. And she has to tell Colin that Parsi law does not allow her to get a divorce:
The abuse he gave me was not severe enough... A Parsi woman can only get a divorce if the damage is quite severe—loss of an eye, or a limb.
Nevertheless, seeing them together on the railway platform, when the mysteries are solved and Purveen is about to board the train back to Bombay, Maharani Mirabai notes their body-language and observes:
They were having trouble saying goodbye to each other. He was English, she was Indian, and of course they could not be together; but in some way, they had bridged that impassable river.
This second Purveen Mistry novel is as tangled, mysterious, fascinating, and absorbing as Sujata Massey's very successful, A Murder at Malabar Hill. Purveen is certainly finding that being a female lawyer can be a dangerous profession, but I hope this is not the last we have heard of "P.J. Mistry Esquire."
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