I am suggesting this book as a discussion topic, in the hope that other members will feel like joining me in this thread.

"Sacred Games" has a lot that I love in books: it's a mystery, it's about India (Bombay), it has humour, and you learn a lot about life in Mumbai and India justt by following the Sikh poiceman, Sartaj Singh, in his daily activities.

The book shows some of the failings of Indian society, for example corruption, but not in a way that drags the reader down into hopelessness or despair, and so you can keep on reading.

I'll give a reference to an excellent review on the book, entitled "Despair and nihilism in Bombay"
http://jaiarjun.blogspot.com/2006/08/despair-and-nihili…
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http://jaiarjun.blogspot.com/2006/08/despair-and-nihili…
At one level, Sacred Games is a fast-paced thriller driven by conversation and incident (this aspect is stressed by the delightfully lurid cover, complete with gaudy title font and portraits of Gaitonde and Sartaj that bleed into each other, the faces sharing a common eye). But running between the pages of this book is another, more thoughtful, more cynical narrative about the nature of identity, and the endless and unknowable workings of action and reaction. This second book is driven by the characters' interior lives, their attempts to make some sense of their world, and their inherent nihilism."

P-S: the link I gave doesn't seem to work, but you can find the review by googling its title.