Set in present-day Mumbai, this work tells the story of a notorious Hindu gangster and a police inspector whose lives unfold and eventually interse...
read full description
reviews
Dec 17, 2009
Maura
rated it: 
It took me a year to read this book. One year and exactly three days. At nine hundred pages, I spent 12 months considering how to approach the text, how to shrink it and put it in my pocket, my purse, comfortably under my arm. After 12 months I sat down, opened it, and proceeded to consume it in three days.
Sacred Games follows a Bombay police inspector and mafia Don: two men whose stories critically cross but only briefly meet. As the story unfolds, the list of characters grows to extr More...
Sacred Games follows a Bombay police inspector and mafia Don: two men whose stories critically cross but only briefly meet. As the story unfolds, the list of characters grows to extr More...
Dec 17, 2009
Marc
rated it: 
So close . . . I almost loved this book, but somehow the whole was less than the sum of the (ample) parts. In the end, as much as I enjoyed each of the narratives, I didn't think that Chandra had the chops to integrate them, which is unfortunate since that seemed to be the whole point of the thing. Chandra gets massive points for ambition, but comes up short in the execution. The biggest problem is Chandra's inability (or, more charitably, disinclination) to vary his narrative voice despite his
More...
4 comments
like
(5 people liked it)
Feb 15, 2008
Shelley
rated it:
Well, what a little hypocrite I am ... because politically, this book has so much wrong with it on so many levels. So don't rush out and read it and then denounce me, and you know who I'm talking to. But. Still. What a story. What writing. What a great read. In its scope and thrust and breadth -- it is at once a detective story, a character study or rather series of character studies, a sweeping meditation on the post-colonial history of India and in particular the national question (I found one
More...
Feb 26, 2009
Prashant
rated it:
Vikram Chandra's "Sacred Games" is the "best" Bombay book, whichever way you look at it. It is set in Bombay and it is about the great metropolis.
Bombay is probably the main character in this "tome" (900 pages and 7 years in the making), which is at first difficult to penetrate, but completely addictive and rewarding once, you go past the 200 page mark.
What makes the book difficult to penetrate is the profusion of characters and the confusin More...
Bombay is probably the main character in this "tome" (900 pages and 7 years in the making), which is at first difficult to penetrate, but completely addictive and rewarding once, you go past the 200 page mark.
What makes the book difficult to penetrate is the profusion of characters and the confusin More...
0 comments
like
(5 people liked it)
Nov 01, 2007
Atul
rated it:
I'll ignore the insets when I write about this book. Being from Mumbai and a someone who love the city more than anything, this book was a wonderful read. Chandra tells nice stories! More about this book in this post, in my blog.
0 comments
like
(2 people liked it)
Nov 24, 2008
Powells.com
rated it:
"Sacred Games is a brilliant crime epic, which impressively balances a literary detective and gangster story with a cinematically violent tale of contemporary Bombay. One of Chandra's most remarkable achievements amidst this novel of marvels is his ability to turn mundane moments into extraordinary ones; a father's lovingly ritualized inquiries into his sons' hygiene are just as compelling as far higher octane scenes of crime and gang wars. The overall effect for the reader is to have the b
More...
0 comments
like
(3 people liked it)
Mar 20, 2008
Valerie
rated it:
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers.
To view it, click here
0 comments
like
(1 person liked it)
Feb 19, 2008
Mandar
rated it:
So this was a thrilling, page-turner. With lots of Indian gaalis thrown in. And of course, tons and tons of violence. And two amazing characters - Sartaj and Gaitonde. The tone of the book, the dialogues were right on the money, really authentic and all that. I really liked his language. But "literary masterpiece" - I think not.
Also, it was too bloody long. I like to relish a good book, admire a nice turn of phrase - and this book was full of those - but there were parts More...
Also, it was too bloody long. I like to relish a good book, admire a nice turn of phrase - and this book was full of those - but there were parts More...
0 comments
like
(2 people liked it)
Sep 13, 2007
T. Scott
rated it: 
This is, as many have no doubt noted, a long book. I read at night before I go to bed, so this was a long read for me, but I looked forward to being pulled into it each night. I won't describe the plot because you can find it elsewhere, except to say that its setting is Bombay (Mumbai) and that it's a book of dual identities -- cop and mobster -- and depicts each with varying degrees of sympathy, empathy and sadness. I felt both were at the core melancholy figures looking for something. One thin
More...
0 comments
like
(4 people liked it)
Jul 28, 2007
Radhika
rated it:
Really, really, really a good read. Pulled me in and kept me there despite its LOOONG length. It is almost a 1000 pages. But so well written. I love complex interwoven stories, stories from which other stories emerge. Despite not meeting characters for whole chapters, you recollect them easily. The portraits are quite nice but Bombay and its messy feelings run through the whole novel. It is replete with Bambaiya which one may understand using the glossary provided at the back of the book.
More...
0 comments
like
(1 person liked it)
Mar 28, 2007
Allison
rated it:
This is a sprawling novel about gangsters and cops in Mumbai, India. The author includes a Hindi glossary to assist with the Hindi words sprinkled liberally throughout the text. At first I was frustrated because I wanted to look all of them up, and this book is big (900 pages) and heavy, which made it very cumbersome. But as I went along, I recognized many of the words (especially the bad ones!), so I didn't have to refer to the glossary as often. The main characters are Sartaj Singh, a policema
More...
0 comments
like
(1 person liked it)
Aug 03, 2008
Andrea
rated it:
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers.
To view it, click here
0 comments
like
(1 person liked it)
Jan 24, 2008
Logan
rated it:
I am a sucker for fiction set in or around Mumbai, so picking this up was a no-brainer. Chandra's first book, Red Earth & Falling Rain, was only so-so but this new book has managed to grip me within the first 50 pages. I'll let you know how I'm feeling after I get to Page 900 or so...
900 pages later, I am of the opinion that Vikram Chandra is in dire need of a skilled editor. This could have been whittled down about 500 pages and moved a lot more smoothly, yet the characters are s More...
900 pages later, I am of the opinion that Vikram Chandra is in dire need of a skilled editor. This could have been whittled down about 500 pages and moved a lot more smoothly, yet the characters are s More...
0 comments
like
(3 people liked it)
Apr 20, 2010
Joyce
rated it:
Why did Ganesh Gaitonde, Mafia-style Indian crime lord, return to Mumbai to commit suicide?[return][return]This question is central to the plot of this very good police procedural. Two protagonists are driven to find the answer: Sartaj Singh, an divorced inspector with the Mumbai police department, and Gaitonde himself, who narrates his life story--after his suicide.[return][return]While true to its genre, Sacred Games is much more than a police procedural. The story could not have taken place
More...
Jan 22, 2009
Chris
rated it:
This big, juicy novel exuberantly thrusts the reader into modern India like no other I've read. Although the story moves as fast as any successful thriller, and the plot careens energetically in many directions, it's all headed to one deeper place: to examine if the way we act in the world reflects who we are inside, or is an assumed, learned response to the circumstances we experience. With that difficult task in hand, Chandra, a master raconteur, tells the intertwining stories of two men, who
More...
0 comments
like
(2 people liked it)
Jan 29, 2012
Rebecca
rated it:
A journey into another land, where things are familiar on the surface but become darker and more perilous the further you wander. I knew nothing of the Indian culture going into the book and was pleasantly surprised by some of the cultural and historical (implied) situations and positions discussed in the book. The characters were developed a little slowly at first and once the book gets going, it was easy to pick out my favorites. At times it felt like there was too much detail in the writing,
More...
Jan 02, 2012
Kathleen
rated it:
This all-enveloping tale of Bombay/Mumbai and the life of a quiet, divorced police officer, Sartaj Singh, kept my attention so deftly even when my reading was interrupted for weeks at a time by family issues, the loss of the book itself (!), the unveiling of its hiding place, the holidays, death of a family member, and the coming of a new baby. I was educated in many ways about contemporary life in India, about BHAI(wiseguy) gangs, about astronomy, astrology, castes, foods, teas, gods, bombs, a
More...
Oct 10, 2011
Richard
rated it:
WOW. What a book! It's over 900pp long! It's as overwhelming and complex and befuddling as Bharat itself is, for an uninitiated Murrikin tourist.
It's also fabuolously, gorgeously wrought, and very much worthy of being a bestseller. It never will be, for several reasons.
First: It has, and needs, a glossary. Second, it needs but has not an organized-by-relationship Cast of Characters. Third, it's a blinkin' wrist-sprainer of a hardcover and would be fatter than the Bible if More...
It's also fabuolously, gorgeously wrought, and very much worthy of being a bestseller. It never will be, for several reasons.
First: It has, and needs, a glossary. Second, it needs but has not an organized-by-relationship Cast of Characters. Third, it's a blinkin' wrist-sprainer of a hardcover and would be fatter than the Bible if More...
3 comments
like
(1 person liked it)
Aug 12, 2011
Stephen
rated it:
Sacred Games is not just a crime thriller, it takes the reader on a journey to explore life among the people of Mumbai. It is like an adventure holiday with people and a culture you would never meet. There are criminals and other people caught up in this underworld of Mumbai away from the gloss. This full story of Mumbai life covers a wide range of issues and shows how Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs can live together.
A great deal of Sacred Games deals with spirituality, the meaning of life More...
A great deal of Sacred Games deals with spirituality, the meaning of life More...
Nov 20, 2010
Kirstie
rated it:
You know that one Seinfeld episode where Elaine loves all the recommendations of this guy at the video rental place and even goes to the point of falling in love with him and it turns out he's just a kid? Well, I tend to love all of the recommendations of Ed at Unabridged Books in Chicago. It's really not like that though as he's much older than me, I'm married, and I'm pretty sure he's not interested in women that way. He usually has impeccable taste, though, so I follow all of his reviews a
More...
Sep 05, 2010
David
rated it:
Wanted to enjoy this book....starts out great but just meanders around with endless asides and subplots...some like this, supposed to be literary that is, but unless they take the story forward and help the reader understand the characters better the aides don't have a function. It could be argued that they do here but I just couldn't get into the 'spirit' of them. The style was also a problem. Though the sentences are well constructed they lack any lyrical quality...no 'beauty' of construction.
More...
Apr 06, 2009
Lizzy
rated it:
Dear Vikram,
It's been a while since we last spoke. I hope you've been well. I am sorry I only gave your book 3 stars. Seriously though, wtf were you thinking? Do you remember my telling you not to name it Sacred Games? At least you didn't name it Almanac of the Living and the Dead (I think that was the title you originally suggested); we all agreed that that was too similar to Leslie Marmon Silko's Almanac of the Dead - although, now that I actual read your book, I can see where you More...
It's been a while since we last spoke. I hope you've been well. I am sorry I only gave your book 3 stars. Seriously though, wtf were you thinking? Do you remember my telling you not to name it Sacred Games? At least you didn't name it Almanac of the Living and the Dead (I think that was the title you originally suggested); we all agreed that that was too similar to Leslie Marmon Silko's Almanac of the Dead - although, now that I actual read your book, I can see where you More...
Jul 26, 2007
Lena
rated it:
As someone with a 300-page attention span, I wasn't sure I'd finish Vikram's 900-page magnum opus. But the story is so engrossing I could hardly put the book down, and I'm not someone who generally reads crime thrillers. The language is stunning, the characters are rich and deep, and book gives Westerners like me a view into Indian life that we would never be likely to see otherwise. I found myself lingering over the images and ideas in this book long after the 900th page.
0 comments
like
(3 people liked it)
Feb 18, 2009
AJ
rated it:
I love big, huge epic stories. And, for some reason, I particularly love big, huge epic stories set in India. Maybe it's because India seems like a place so full of differences, such drastic highs and lows, that epic events can still happen there. Sacred Games is an excellent book, with my one quibble being that the plot seemed to range a bit far from reality towards the end, although I believe that only struck me because the rest of the book is so grittily born in the real. I think one of the q
More...
Dec 30, 2008
Ginny
rated it:
This came to me via my About.com life, for an interview with the author. It follows two men, Sartaj Singh, a forty-something Mumbai policeman whose career and personal life have both plateaued, and Ganesh Gaitonde, a bhai, or mafia boss, who rose to power from poverty. The two lives intersect when an anonymous tip leads Singh to Gaitonde's secret hideout, a concrete bunker where he has holed up with a woman. While Singh figures out how to break in, Gaitonde watches through a surveillance camera
More...
Jan 23, 2011
Amanda
rated it:
I got this book: At a used bookstore in Waupaca, WI, while on my used bookstore tour in March 2010.
This was an incredibly good book. Sartaj, the lead police inspector and one of the main characters, was my favorite. However, I also ended up really liking Ganesh, the seedy mob boss. I like them both on their own, but what I find really fascinating is how their lives parallel each other. They both have gurus (Sartaj - professional, Ganesh - spiritual) who let them down, the women they wa More...
This was an incredibly good book. Sartaj, the lead police inspector and one of the main characters, was my favorite. However, I also ended up really liking Ganesh, the seedy mob boss. I like them both on their own, but what I find really fascinating is how their lives parallel each other. They both have gurus (Sartaj - professional, Ganesh - spiritual) who let them down, the women they wa More...
0 comments
like
(2 people liked it)
Feb 05, 2009
To critics, Sacred Games seems nearly as bewilderingly complex as Mumbai itself. A Dickensesque thriller, the lengthy melodrama covers almost every imaginable topic__from religious nationalism to politics, castes, the seedy underworld, Bollywood, love, death, nuclear bombs, and the shimmering promise of capitalism. Although the novel focuses on two likeable men, Ganesh and Sartaj (who first appeared in Chandra's 1997 story collection, Love and Longing in Bombay), it meanders into the backstories
More...
Feb 14, 2010
Robyn
rated it:
I was looking for an Indian detective novel, and I surely found it. You have to commit yourself to this book, because it's an Indian novel in the Mahabbarata style...900 pages long. But if you do commit, there are several rewards. One, you'll learn all the Hindi/Urdu curse words you'll ever need to know, and find yourself wanting to randomly sprinkle them into conversation. Two, you'll find yourself addressing your cats as "Kevin-ji" and "Gilly saab," which is kind of coo
More...
0 comments
like
(1 person liked it)
May 19, 2011
رناتا
rated it:
La novela Juegos Sagrados es la última novela del escrito indio Vikram Chandra y me ha enganchado desde la primera página. Chandra es un autor indio en lengua inglesa que cuenta en su haber con dos novelas largas y un libro de historias cortas, es profesor de escritura creativa en la universidad de Berkeley y pasa su vida entre los EE.UU., donde desarrolla su carrera académica, y Bombay, de donde es originario y en donde su familia está muy ligada a la industria cinematográfica. Además, es co-es
More...
0 comments
like
(1 person liked it)
Feb 06, 2012
Frank
rated it:
I felt like I had been immersed in Indian culture and life in modern day Mumbai and was sorry to see it end. This book has really led to an interest and better understanding of life in India. It was full of interesting characters and sub-plots – mystery, romance, food, relationships, history, drama – you name it. Chandra is really a genius in weaving all of this together telling the story of gangsters, corrupt politicians and policemen, prostitutes and holy men, terrorists and Bollywood actresse
More...
