In the year 1922 the US Supreme Court upheld women's right to vote in the United States, but it wouldn’t be until 1947 that women in India were granted the same right. That makes Perveen Mistry, the independent career woman at the fore of Sujata Massey’s series about Bombay’s first female solicitor in the 1920s, all the more remarkable for a woman of her time and place.

Perveen was introduced in the superb Widows of Malabar Hill, which won a 2019 Agatha Award for best historical novel and the Simon & Schuster Mary Higgins Clark Award. As engrossing as Widows was, Massey’s The Satapur Moonstone surpasses it in another leap forward to open the curtain on Indian culture and women’s roles in the early 20th century.

Sir David Hobson-Jones, a top adviser to India’s governor and the father of Perveen’s best friend, Alice, asks her if she will handle a situation in the state of Satapur. The area’s two maharanis—the royal mother-in-law and daughter-in-law—are feuding over whether the current maharajah, 10-year-old Jiva Reo, should be educated in England or India. Because tradition demands the two women avoid contact with men, Perveen is particularly well-suited for mediating their dispute and making the recommendation for the boy’s education. Compassionate, ambitious, and upset that many see Indian women as “faceless, nameless, and passive,” Perveen views the assignment as a way to potentially increase business, since other women may need “a lady lawyer” to help them get things done.

Once in Satapur, Perveen discovers a palace, where two previous Satapur rulers died in recent years, rife with betrayal. Is Reo, who will become ruler in eight years, in danger?

Massey’s meticulous research for The Satapur Moonstone gives an intriguing view of India and its life under British occupation from the development of railroads and dams to societal issues of gender and caste. With a rich setting and an admirable protagonist, Perveen’s adventures should be the basis for a long series.