Sacred Games: A Novel by Vikram Chandra Reviewed by Jonathan Yardley
Washington Post Book World
"The enthusiasm with which the venerable firm of HarperCollins is promoting this massive deadweight of a novel, and the money that it's putting where its mouth is, leaves one to ponder once again the eternally mysterious ways of the book-publishing industry. Certainly, Vikram Chandra is a writer of some talent, and he has a couple of British Commonwealth prizes to show for it, yet how is one to explain the ballyhoo with which advance proofs of Sacred Games were accompanied ? they actually came in a gold slipcase! ? or the $300,000 that the publisher says it will spend on a campaign to market the novel? It is almost inconceivable to me that American readers will rush to buy this novel, much less keep on reading it after, say, the first 50 pages, yet HarperCollins is so convinced they will that it is betting the house on Sacred Games...." Read the entire Washington Post Book World review.