It takes a fearless mind to harbour such a dark heart,

a heart that knows no nobility, no apology…

Mumbai, April 2012. The gruesome murder of a senior citizen in a wealthy Mumbai neighbourhood leads the city’s Crime Branch to unearth several half-naked, mutilated and dismembered bodies rotting in the ravines of the Western Ghats on the outskirts of the city.

A trail of missing suspects, a lethal honey-trap, and unexpected links with Mumbai’s film industry and the underworld, brings the investigators – and the press, ever hungry for breaking news – to Vijay Palande, a cold-blooded killer equipped with the sophistication of Charles Sobhraj, the manipulative genius of Ted Bundy and the cruelty of Jack the Ripper.

In The Front Page Murders, Puja Changoiwala, who covered the incidents as they unfolded, recounts in gripping detail the story behind the sensational case of multiple murders that shocked the country. Startling and intensely sobering by turns, her compelling narrative explores not just the murky depths of a serial killer’s mind but, tellingly, the media’s frenzy for a juicy story and the insatiable human appetite for horror.