The Mumbai Police’ hand in Dawood’s rise is chronicled clearly. This also marks the beginning of the second tier of his organisation’s hierarchy – Chhota and Bada Rajan, Chhota Shakeel and later, Anees Ibrahim (Dawood’s brother) and Abu Salem.

The emergency, Dawood’s feud with the Pathans, the attempt at a truce at the behest of Mastan, its worsening with the killing of Dawood’s brother, and his subsequent scaling of business form the next few chapters. This section also throws light on the influence of Ibrahim Kaskar, Dawood’s father, a cop who also enjoyed the respect of most of the era’s prominent dons. The book then moves on to Dawood’s rise – starting from the toppling of Dongri’s incumbent don Baashu Dada to his heist of what he wrongly thought was Mastan’s money and beyond. Mastan’s search for ‘legitimacy’ and associations with Bollywood and politics are also highlighted, as is the beginning of the underworld’s nexus with the cops and politicians. The triumvirate of Haji Mastan, Karim Lala, and Varadarajan Mudaliar feature prominently in the next few chapters, which are dedicated to the intricacies of gold and electronics smuggling, bootlegging, minor extortion, the prostitution trade, dispute settling and other activities that filled the coffers of Mastan and his allies. The book begins with an interview with Dawood Ibrahim in 1997, the last published one, and one that is credited to the author himself, spends a chapter that serves as a synopsis of the don’s life thus far and then quickly zooms back to the 50s and 60s focusing on the birth of Mumbai’s underworld. While the ‘hero’ remains the big D, the author traces the history of Bombay’s underworld from the 1950’s until Operation Neptune Spear – Bin Laden’s death – and its repercussions on Dawood.

As a chronicle of the Mumbai mafia, this book does complete justice to the job.

Dongri To Dubai by S. Hussain Zaidi