Perveen Mistry lives in Bombay, India in the 1920s. She is the city’s first lawyer, but sexist, and racist hierarchies prevent her from entering a courtroom. She must practice law for her father from their office at home. One advantage is as a member of the Parsi community, and a woman, she has access to a Muslim family of three wives, and their children after their husband dies. Perveen visits Omar Farid’s wives to iron out the will only to discover that the sole male protector of the household–he lives on the male side of the divided house–tells her that the household money is being donated to a school for boys. As the mystery of the bizarre financial arrangements are investigated, additional financial and social abnormalities emerge allowing us, as readers, to learn more about the lives of sheltered women, the culture of Indian Parsis (descendents of Persians), and British-Indian relations in the decades leading up to Indian independence.