Widows of Malabar Hill

A very engaging tale of a newly-minted attorney in 1920s Bombay (now Mumbai). Purveen Mistry is Bombay’s first and only female attorney, which presents several professional drawbacks, but it has one huge advantage: access to the class of women, often very wealthy, who are walled off from outside society in a harem and allow no contact with any males except their husband. This book is the story of a will-and-trust situation (a complex one, given the three surviving wives) that turns into a murder investigation, for which our heroine is quite unprepared. It also provides interesting insights into the interplay between India’s superficially-tolerant religious factions and the social issues (but also some of the equalizing and stabilizing influences) resulting from the British occupation which had then been going on for over 150 years. The events of the book also provide an introduction to some aspects of the Parsee religion (Zoroastrianism) imported from Persia in the middle ages, although mostly the book addresses only a few of the more dramatic practices rather than a fuller exposition of that very interesting religion.  This was read as an audio book, the quality of which was excellent, using several audio voices and tonalities to keep the characters distinct.

Link to the book on Amazon