Sujata Massey Biography and latest books by Sujata Massey

Sujata Massey is a mystery writer born out of a mother from Bonne, Switzerland and a father from Bengal, India. The family emigrated to the United States from Sussex, England at the age of 5. Sujata is popularly known for her series featuring Rei Shimura, an antiques dealer and detective born to a Japanese father and an American mother. Many of her novels are set in Japan and Washington, D.C. Shimura Trouble concludes the Rei Shimura series.

Novelist Sujata Massey’s novels are different since she writes mysteries, and sets them in Japan. Her protagonist, Rei Shimura, is the daughter of a Japanese Buddhist father and an American mother. Influenced by her favourite Enid Blyton, Massey has penned a total of seven books in her series featuring Shimura. Her novels are known for intricate plots, very little violence and complicated, well-etched characters. Massey’s work provides a window into the life of Japan as it is.

Sujata has majored in creative writing from Johns Hopkins University. She then began focusing on writing fashion and food at the Baltimore Evening Sun. and it was here that she learnt to record details about a place.

Massey is married to a naval medical officer and she accompanied him to Japan for two years. There she learnt Japanese language, ikebana, and taught English in Hayama, a small town outside of Tokyo. She then began writing The Salaryman’s Wife and completed it when she returned to the United States. She was fortunate enough to receive a prestigious grant, designed to help unpublished mystery writers, from St. Martin’s Press/Malice Domestic. A few months later, Massey sold her work to Harper Collins and continued writing mystery.