Smuggling, gun-running, drugs, terrorism — for many decades, Mumbai has lived under the shadow of the Underworld. Dawood Ibrahim, Karim Lala, Varadarajan Mudaliar: these are names that any Indian would recognise. Analysed in print, immortalised on film, their lives, their gangs, their ‘businesses’ are out there for anyone who wants the information. But there have been women, too, who have been part of this murky side of the city, walking along side, sometimes leading and manipulating men in the Underworld to run their own illegal businesses. Here, for the first time, crime journalists S. Hussain Zaidi and Jane Borges explore the livesof some of these women, and how, in cold blood, they were able to make their way up in what was certainly a man’s world.

From Kamathipura to Dongri, from assassins to molls, this is a collection that tells the stories of women who have become legend in Mumbai’s streets, lanes and back-alleys. Absorbingly told, impeccably researched, Mafia Queens of Mumbai reveals a side of Mumbai’s Underworld that has never been seen before.