Book of the Week: March 1, 2007

Sacred Games

By Vikram Chandra

After seven years worth of creation and a fierce bidding war for publishing rights, including a reportedly enormous advance for the author, Vikram Chandra’s magnificent 900-page tome delivers an unprecedented look at modern Bombay, for all its faults and positives. It also offers a complex, engaging detective line.

Using multiple perspectives including the intrepid Sikh police detective and the dead Hindu gangster boss, Chandra weaves a narrative web that encompasses India as a modern society, as well as its violent, dark underbelly.

Seth Marko at Warwick’s made this week’s selection.