A movie censor murdered, a leading lady vanished—the glamour, romance, and intrigue of the beginnings of Bollywood come to vivid life in the thrilling new installment of the Perveen Mistry historical mystery series.
India, 1922: Perveen Mistry, the only female lawyer in Bombay, is on the verge of securing her biggest client yet: Champa Films, a movie studio run by director Subhas Ghoshal and his wife, Rochana, the biggest name in Indian cinema. In the public eye, Rochana is notorious for her beauty and her daring stunts—behind the scenes, she has recently left the Calcutta studio that made her famous, and the studio owner is enraged by what he claims is a breach of contract. Rochana needs Perveen’s legal help to extricate Champa Films from the impending controversy.
To study Rochana’s glamorous world, Perveen attends a Champa Films screening and brings her film fanatic best friend, Alice Hobson-Jones. But in the aftermath of the event, one of the guests is found dead, and to make matters worse, Rochana has disappeared.
Now with a different legal obligation to her clients—to protect them in the face of a developing murder case—Perveen begins to investigate, peeling back the glitz to reveal a salacious web of blackmail, deceit, and romantic affairs. Perveen has her own secret: her relationship with a handsome former civil service officer, which is becoming harder to hide by the day. For the first time in their friendship, Alice seems to be keeping a secret from Perveen. Is she hiding key information about the night of the murder? Will Perveen be able to detangle the truth from lies while protecting herself—and her closest friend?