The first glimpse of the sea at Marine Drive filled my heart, if not my head. I turned away from the red shadow. I stopped thinking about that pyramid of murderers and Sanjay's recklessness. I ceased to reflect on my own part in the madness. And I rode with my friends into the end of everything.

Shantaram introduced millions of readers to a cast of unforgettable characters through Lin, an Australian refugee who worked as a forger for a branch of the Bombay mafia. In The Mountain Shadow, the long-awaited sequel, Lin must find his way in a Bombay ruled by a new generation of mafia bosses playing by different rules.

Two years have passed since the events of Shantaram, and Lin has lost two people he had grown to love: his father figure Khaderbhai and his soulmate Karla, who is married to a handsome Indian media magnate. Lin returns from a smuggling trip to a city that seems to have changed too quickly. Many of his old friends have long since disappeared, the new mafia leadership is embroiled in increasingly violent and dangerous intrigues, and a legendary saint questions everything Lin thought he knew about love and life. But Lin cannot leave the island city: Karla and a deadly promise won't let him go.