India, 1922. A curse seems to have fallen upon the royal family of Satapur, a princely kingdom tucked away in the lush Sahyadari mountains, where both the maharaja and his teenage son have met with untimely deaths. The state is now ruled by an agent of the British Raj on behalf of Satapur's two maharanis, the dowager queen and her daughter-in-law.

When a dispute arises between the royal ladies over the education of the young crown prince, a lawyer's counsel is required to settle the matter. Since the maharanis live in purdah, the one person who can help is Perveen Mistry, Bombay's only female lawyer. But Perveen arrives to find that the Satapur Palace is full of cold-blooded power play and ancient vendettas.

Too late she realizes she has walked into a trap. But whose? And how can she protect the royal children from the palace's deadly curse?

Sujata Massey is an award-winning and highly acclaimed mystery writer. Born in England to parents from India and Germany, she grew up mostly in St Paul, Minnesota. She holds a BA in Writing Seminars from John Hopkins University, and started her working life as a features reporter for the Baltimore Evening Sun. After leaving the newspaper, she moved to Japan, where she studied Japanese, taught English and began writing her first novel, The Salaryman's Wife. This novel became the first of many in the Rei Shimura mystery series, which has won the Agatha and Macavity awards, and been nominated for the Edgar, Anthony, and Mary Higgins Clarkawards. Sujata has also written acclaimed historical novels like The City of Palaces, and her books have been published in more than eighteen countries. Currently, she is based near Washington DC.