Sujata Massey was born in the United Kingdom to an Indian father and a German mother. The family moved to the United States when she was a child. Massey graduated from Johns Hopkins University and worked as a journalist for the Baltimore Sun. Between 1991 and 1993, she lived in Japan with her naval officer husband and worked as an English language teacher while studying Japanese, flower arranging, and cooking. Massey published her first novel in 1997 and is known for two detective fiction series. The first features Rei Shimura, an antique dealer who is a biracial detective and solves crimes set in Japan and the United States. This series has 11 novels. She began a second series of historical detective fiction set in 1920s Bombay featuring Parveen Mistry, a lawyer. This series has four novels to date. Additionally, Massey has published a stand-alone novel, The Sleeping Dictionary, and several works of short fiction.