Book completed
May. 30th, 2026 11:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eve_primeThe Widows of Malabar Hill, by Sujata Massey. Perveen Mistry #1. I learned about this book and series from a friend, and I’m glad I did. It’s a mystery set in 1921 Bombay, with flashbacks to 1916-1917, featuring a young woman who becomes a lawyer in her family’s law firm. Because she’s a woman, Perveen is perfectly placed to interview three Hindu women who have been widowed (by the same man) – they’re all in purdah so they cannot be face to face with men who aren’t in their family. Their husband’s death is not suspicious, but other matters arise. Meanwhile, we learn how and why Perveen came to join her father in his work, and we meet the other members of her family, as well as her British best friend, and others in her life about whom I’m not going to give spoiler details. It’s all tremendously interesting and thoroughly researched.
Maybe it’s just me, but I’m wondering if it’s something of a trope in British and American media to have their protagonists in early 20th century India be Parsi (a religious minority – Zoroastrians of Persian descent). I’ve encountered it multiple times. It makes a lot of sense for an author to make this choice – Parsis are neither Hindu nor Muslim, so they can see both of the major Indian religions from the outside. They’re often well-educated and middle class, and they tended to respect their women. I wondered if Massey’s own family had Parsi roots, but no, her Indian ancestors were Hindu, so it was a deliberate choice. One thing I appreciated, besides learning more about Parsi culture, was that the book explored the potential downsides of Parsis with especially traditional perspectives (thankfully, not the Mistry family).
I definitely enjoyed it (although I had a pretty good idea whodunnit before the crime event even happened, although I didn’t know why). I also appreciated that the author let her heroine be reasonably resilient, even when bad things happened, rather than dwelling on those bad things or making them especially vivid. I look forward to reading more in the series.
Maybe it’s just me, but I’m wondering if it’s something of a trope in British and American media to have their protagonists in early 20th century India be Parsi (a religious minority – Zoroastrians of Persian descent). I’ve encountered it multiple times. It makes a lot of sense for an author to make this choice – Parsis are neither Hindu nor Muslim, so they can see both of the major Indian religions from the outside. They’re often well-educated and middle class, and they tended to respect their women. I wondered if Massey’s own family had Parsi roots, but no, her Indian ancestors were Hindu, so it was a deliberate choice. One thing I appreciated, besides learning more about Parsi culture, was that the book explored the potential downsides of Parsis with especially traditional perspectives (thankfully, not the Mistry family).
I definitely enjoyed it (although I had a pretty good idea whodunnit before the crime event even happened, although I didn’t know why). I also appreciated that the author let her heroine be reasonably resilient, even when bad things happened, rather than dwelling on those bad things or making them especially vivid. I look forward to reading more in the series.
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Date: 2026-06-04 07:32 pm (UTC)I was wondering that too about Parsi (or and same as Farsi). More a neutral religion was my thought. We had a friend that was Farsi that Gene worked with for years. So that religion is still around a bit.
I get so upset in those books knowing The Partition will come and things will be really bad.
Yes, her character is lovely, and resilient.
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Date: 2026-06-04 09:18 pm (UTC)I hadn't heard of people practicing the Parsi religion being called Farsi, but it could make sense, because Farsi is the Persian (or Iranian) name for the language they speak in Iran. So the Parsi people are often speaking Farsi. But most of the people in Iran are not Parsi, they're Muslim, and they also speak Farsi.
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Date: 2026-06-06 11:09 pm (UTC)Yes, at least they were more neutral citizens during The Partition.
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Date: 2026-06-07 01:59 am (UTC)