Sacred Games, by Vikram Chandra

A fascinating glimpse into not just one, but a multitude of foreign cultures--gangsters, Bollywood, the police, and, of course, India itself—Sacred Games is nearly 900 pages long but keeps the reader enthralled for the entire journey through the seedy criminal classes of Bombay, and the earnest and corrupt policemen who pursue them. The pages are filled with stories and backstories, and somehow, even though Chandra gives a short history of nearly every character, this never becomes tiresome, but instead offers new layers of insight and connections between the society that springs up, fully formed, between the covers of this novel. The relationship betwen Sartaj Singh, a Sikh policeman, and Ganesh Gaitonde, a Hindu gangster, slowly develops as the chapters alternate between the two of them, between Singh looking to discover why Gaitonde killed himself, and Gaitonde himself narrating his life story. Meticulously researched—based on a real story, no less--and written with a fine control of language—not too showy, but steady and inviting, rife with slang and vulgar words in Hindi and Marathi—Sacred Games is an amazing achievement, for which Chandra deserves, and certainly has gotten, congratulations.