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Sacred Games: A Novel (P.S.)
by Vikram Chandra
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Edition: Paperback
Publication Date: December 01, 2007
Publisher: Harper Perennial
ISBN: 0061130362
Amazon.com Sales Rank: 19155
Average Customer Rating: 
List price: $16.95
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Showing page 1 of 13
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Reviews
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 A thoroughly satisfying read, January 1, 2009
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I have been a big fan of Indian fiction for some time and found this book a great read on a par with the best (A Suitable Boy, MIdnight's Children, you name it).
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 Is it over yet?, December 22, 2008
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Sacred Games is too complex for its own good. The main story line of Sartaj Singh and Ganesh Gaitonde is fantastic. It's all the "interwoven" story lines that interfere with the flow of the book. This book was a tough read in that it was hard work to maintain my interest. As soon as Chandra had me hooked he'd go off on a tangent again...for an entire chapter. And when I was hooked again...he'd go off on a tangent again...
There are better books about Mumbai (Bombay) out there...Shantaram and Maximum City.
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Long, but worth it., December 8, 2008
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A long, sprawling, complicated story that I'd highly recommend.
At 800 pages (and because I didn't want to haul a book of this size on a 10-day trip to Europe) this took me two months to finish. And I felt like I lost a few details of the story from taking a 10-day break, so I actually want to read it again to see what I missed.
The author is an incredible storyteller; the characters -- even very minor ones -- are vividly written. I really got sucked into this story, and as a bonus I learned a lot of Hindi cursewords (there's a glossary in the back to help with some of the non-English words and phrases sprinkled throughout the dialogue).
Pay attention while reading; seemingly meaningless details and minor characters show up later in the story and almost everyone ends up being connected in some way. I'm not usually a fan of cop/gangster stories, but this book is a lot more than just a bad guy-good guy chase story.
Some familiarity with Indian history and culture (Bollywood stars/major films, Partition, the caste system and the many religions of India) may give you a deeper understanding of what's going on, but is not necessary. (I guess what I'm saying is, it may help you but don't let a lack of knowledge stop you from reading this book.)
Note to the faint of heart: the book does contain some graphic descriptions of violence and sex, but it's about cops and gangsters, so what do you expect?!
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sacred games, November 23, 2008
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good read with excellent character development. good story line. the author takes you to india with excellent insight into cops bad guy politicans and religion
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Sacred Games, October 24, 2008
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I originally purchased this book from another source some time ago, and when I was about a third of the way through it realized how important I thought the book was. I went back to the source and purchased the last two remaining copies and immediately gave it to two friends. Last month, I was with another group of friends and we were discussing books, and I mentioned this book to them. They seemed interested and I purchased four more copies from Amazon. I promptly sent them out to more friends. As a typical American of northern European extraction, I knew of the cultures but was unaware of the subtleties of those cultures that this book portrays. I believe that India and the middle east and their religions and differences are destined to play most major roles in the world for a long time to come, and I think that this work does a fabulous job of portraying the situation. We would all do well to read this, because, I fear that this is our future.
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Reviews
