Author Works: Whodunit? with Sujata Massey & Nev March (Online)

If twisty mysteries with powerful characters and historical flair are your jam - then find your next read in this exciting conversation with two trail-blazing writers. 

"Perveen is much more than a sari-clad Miss Marple: she's Bombay's first female lawyer as well as a keenly intelligent sleuth..Deliciously Satisfying" - Kate Quinn, New York tims bestselling author of The Diamond Eye."

“March’s gift for elevated language nicely supports the period setting. . . Familiar mystery tropes are skillfully woven into an entertaining vintage whodunit.” –Kirkus Reviews

Bombay’s only female solicitor, Perveen Mistry, grapples with class divisions, sexism, and complex family dynamics as she seeks justice for a mistreated young woman in The Mistress of Bhatia House, the thrilling fourth installment in Sujata Massey’s award-winning series.

India, 1922: Perveen Mistry is the only female lawyer in Bombay, a city where child mortality is high, birth control is unavailable and very few women have ever seen a doctor.

Perveen is attending a lavish fundraiser for a new women’s hospital specializing in maternal health issues when she witnesses an accident. The grandson of an influential Gujarati businessman catches fire—but a servant, his young ayah, Sunanda, rushes to save him, selflessly putting herself in harm’s way. Later, Perveen learns that Sunanda, who’s still ailing from her burns, has been arrested on trumped-up charges. Perveen cannot stand by while Sunanda languishes in jail with no hope of justice. She takes Sunanda as a client. 

When the hospital’s chief donor dies suddenly, Miriam Penkar, a Jewish-Indian obstetrician, and Sunanda become suspects. Perveen’s original case spirals into a complex investigation taking her into the Gujarati strongholds of Kalbadevi and Ghatkopar, and up the coast to Juhu Beach, where a decadent nawab lives with his Australian trophy wife. Then a second fire erupts.... 

Sujata Massey was born in England to parents from India and Germany, grew up in St. Paul, Minnesota, and lives in Baltimore, Maryland. She was a features reporter for the Baltimore Evening Sun before becoming a full-time novelist. The first Perveen Mistry novel, The Widows of Malabar Hill, was an international bestseller and won the Agatha, Macavity, and Mary Higgins Clark Awards. Visit her website at sujatamassey.com.

In The Spanish Diplomat's Secret, award-winning author Nev March explores the vivid nineteenth-century world of the transatlantic voyage, one passenger’s secret at a time.

Captain Jim Agnihotri and his wife Lady Diana Framji are embarking to England in the summer of 1894. Jim is hopeful the cruise will help Diana open up to him. Something is troubling her, and Jim is concerned.

On their first evening, Jim meets an intriguing Spaniard, a fellow soldier with whom he finds an instant kinship. But within twenty-four hours, Don Juan Nepomuceno is murdered, his body discovered shortly after he asks rather urgently to see Jim.

When the captain discovers that Jim is an investigator, he pleads with Jim to find the killer before they dock in Liverpool in six days, or there could be international consequences. Aboard the beleaguered luxury liner are a thousand suspects, but no witnesses to the locked-cabin crime. 

Together, using the tricks gleaned from their favorite fictional sleuth, Sherlock Holmes, Jim and Diana must learn why one man’s life came to a murderous end.

Nev March is the first Indian born writer to win the Minotaur Books/Mystery Writers of America First Crime Novel Award for her Edgar-finalist debut, Murder in Old Bombay. After a long career in business analysis, she returned to her passion, writing fiction. Nev sits on the NY chapter board of Mystery Writers of America and is a member of Crime Writers of Color. A Parsi Zoroastrian, she lives with her family in New Jersey and teaches occasionally at the Rutgers University Osher Institute.

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