Abhijit Nagaraj

In scope and content, Vikram Chandra's masala epic is the literary equivalent of a Bollywood film-three hours plus intermission of heroes, gangsters, and lovers scuffling, bawling, disco-ing, and lip-synching Hinglish. At a whopping 900 pages, Sacred Games accommodates a similarly crazy potpourri of genres-two-parts biting thriller, one-part Godfather, a delicate romance, a dab of human solitude, and an ethereal touch of Rig Veda.