The signatures are wrong and the whole thing seems strange. (We find out why in increasingly heartbreaking flashbacks to Perveen’s marriage.) When she sees some suspicious things in paperwork asking for three widows’ dowries to be transferred to a wakf (Muslim charity). Perveen has a protective streak when it comes to women who have been wronged by the legal system. Perveen Mistry, a Parsi woman, usually works on contracts, wills, and other legal paperwork (since she’s not allowed to appear in court) when she finds herself in the middle of a murder investigation. In this book, we are whisked away to Bombay (now Mumbai) in 1921 to tag along with the first female lawyer. Sujata Massey’s The Widows of Malabar Hillrings a lot of my bells: tough, original female protagonist intriguing mystery and a richly described setting that teaches me about a time and place I’ve never read about before.
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