A certain novelist’s marketing agency has posted a new novel’s galleys without realizing that Google can index PDF files. Accident, or just canny marketing?

Here are the first 50 pages of Vikram Chandra’s Sacred Games (or as PDF).

The novel is thoroughly drenched in Bombayspeak:

Sartaj sat at the desk next to Kamble and flipped open a copy of the Indian Express. Two members of the Gaitonde gang had been shot to death in an encounter with the Flying Squad in Bhayander… In other news, there had been two break-ins in Andheri East, one in Worli…

… the Shivsagar Polyclinic wouldn’t let him take the body without a No Objection Certificate endorsed by the police. The handwritten note on Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation stationery would say that the police were satisfied that the death in question was natural… [Link]

The book came out yesterday in Bombay, but U.S./UK fans have a longer wait. A delicious reversal!

Update: This may be an authorized extract for reviewers — Sonia Faleiro linked it back in January.

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