A Necessary Evil by Abir Mukherjee
"The Red Gang" was a "criminal organization that specialized in opium, prostitution, extortion and gambling. And with that sort of pedigree it was natural that they exercised a degree of political control too." Our hero's doomed attraction to a certain lady causes a fatal resignation tinged with irony. "I imagine most women would go off a man who accused them of complicity in murder," he muses, and later, pessimistically watching said lady dancing the Turkey Trot with a prince, he concludes that "Women can't help falling for men that can dance." In a philosophical vein, a powerful maharani advises the policeman with a questing soul to "seek the truth and do not concern yourself with consequences."