Short answer: Netflix’s Sacred Games is based on the 2006 novel of the same name by Vikram Chandra. The source is a single, roughly 900-page literary crime novel — not a book series — so you don’t need to read anything else first. Reading it is rewarding but optional; the show works on its own, and it diverges from the book significantly by the end.
Is Sacred Games based on a book?
Yes. Sacred Games — Netflix’s first Indian original series, which premiered in 2018 — adapts Vikram Chandra’s acclaimed novel. It was co-directed by Anurag Kashyap and Vikramaditya Motwane and stars Saif Ali Khan as police officer Sartaj Singh and Nawazuddin Siddiqui as gangster Ganesh Gaitonde.
The novel is a genuine literary heavyweight, not a quick tie-in. At around 900 pages (some editions run to 928), it won the Vodafone Crossword Book Award and was widely praised on release, cementing Chandra’s reputation as one of India’s major contemporary novelists.
What is the story about?
At its core, Sacred Games braids together two lives in Mumbai:
- Sartaj Singh — a weary, middle-aged Sikh police inspector whose career has stalled and whose marriage has fallen apart.
- Ganesh Gaitonde — a charismatic, ruthless gangster who built a feared criminal empire and who resurfaces with a cryptic warning that the city has only days before catastrophe.
The narrative alternates between Sartaj’s present-day investigation and flashbacks charting Gaitonde’s rise from street-level thug to underworld kingpin — pulling in police corruption, politics, religion and, ultimately, a looming threat hanging over the city. It’s as much a portrait of modern India as it is a crime thriller — the kind of literary adaptation we explore in our look at TV series that differ wildly from their books.
Do you need to read the book first?
No. The novel is a standalone work, so there’s no reading order to worry about, and the series is designed to be watched cold. That said, the book offers far more depth on Mumbai’s underworld, its politics, and the sprawling cast of side characters the show can only gesture at.
Book vs series: what the show changed
This is where it gets interesting, because the adaptation takes real liberties — especially as it goes on:
- The ending diverges. The novel reaches a more definitive conclusion, while the show’s first season ends on a cliffhanger built to launch a second season. If you’ve only seen the series, the book won’t feel “spoiled” so much as different.
- Expanded characters. Figures who are minor or barely sketched in the novel are enlarged for the screen — Kukoo, for instance, becomes a far more central presence in Gaitonde’s story than the book implies.
- Structure and emphasis. The series foregrounds the Sartaj–Gaitonde dual timeline as its spine and reshapes certain threads — including the Guruji arc and the countdown premise — for television pacing.
- Season 2 travels furthest from the page. As the show extends beyond the most straightforward parts of the novel, it invents and reworks more, which is partly why reactions to the second season were more divided.
That “faithful setup, freer finish” pattern is common in adaptations, and it’s a recurring theme across our Books coverage.
Real vs reel: the main cast
- Saif Ali Khan as Inspector Sartaj Singh.
- Nawazuddin Siddiqui as Ganesh Gaitonde.
- Radhika Apte as intelligence analyst Anjali Mathur.
- Kubbra Sait as Kukoo, in a widely praised, breakout role.
- Pankaj Tripathi as the spiritual figure Guruji.
- Kalki Koechlin as Batya Abelman, introduced in Season 2.
Should you read it before or after watching?
If you love dense, literary crime fiction, read it after Season 1 — you’ll appreciate the added texture without feeling the series spoiled it, and you’ll see how much the show reinterprets. If you prefer books first, you’ll still enjoy the series as a bold adaptation rather than a scene-for-scene translation. Either way, treat them as two distinct experiences that share a skeleton.
More from Quack Review: dive into the twisty crime thriller Farzi, plus more gripping series in our TV & OTT section.
