Byculla to Bangkok

One of the finest writers in today’s times.’ (Sanjay Dutt)

‘[A] prodigious chronicler of the underbelly of the maximum city.’ (Adrian Levy)

The underworld has new faces, working for and against Dawood Ibrahim – the shadowy, manipulative figure that pulls the strings. Dawood’s own deputy-turned-arch rival Chhota Rajan, thug-turned-politician Arun Gawli, Amar (Raavan) Naik and his engineer brother, Ashwin Naik and a host of other characters, big and small, walk through this compelling history of the Maharashtrian mobsters who were once dubbed ‘amchi muley’, ‘our boys’, by former Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray. Equally fascinating are the stories of the famous – and infamous – policemen and ‘encounter specialists’ who took on the gangs with great success and not many scruples.

Meticulously researched and thrillingly told by S. Hussain Zaidi, the acclaimed authority on the underworld, Byculla to Bangkok captures the humble beginnings of the organized crime mafias that held Mumbai to ransom through the last decades of the 20th century.