India in the 1920s would have been a tumultuous place. Local kings ruled over swaths of oppressed peasants, and in turn those kings were controlled by the British. It's against this backdrop that Abir Mukherjee's novel A Necessary Evil takes place.
The protagonist is a British investigator tasked with determining who murdered a local prince. I learned a great a deal about the ruling systems of that epoch thanks to the book. But because the point of view is through that of the ruling classes, you don't get any semblance about what life would have been like for the vast majority of the population.
Still, it was a very entertaining way to learn about history; I sought out some of Mukherjee's other books, which is probably the biggest tell of how much I liked it. Enjoy!
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