Paperback: When filming his TV series Race Relations (2009), John Safran spent an uneasy couple of days with one of Mississippi's most notorious white supremacists.
A year later, he heard that the man had been murdered and what was more, the killer was black.
At first, the murder seemed a twist on the old Deep South race crimes. But then more news rolled in.
Maybe it was a dispute over money, or most intriguingly, over sex. Could the infamous racist actually have been secretly gay, with a thing for black men?
Did Safran have the last footage of him alive? Could this be the story of a lifetime?
Seizing his Truman Capote moment, he jumped on a plane to cover the trial.
Over six months, Safran got deeper and deeper into the South, becoming entwined in the lives of those connected with the murder - white separatists, black campaigners, lawyers, investigators, neighbours, even the killer himself.
And the more he talked with them, the less simple the crime, and the world, seemed.
Murder in Mississippi (2013) is a brilliantly innovative true-crime story. It is about how Safran "met a white supremacist, befriended his black killer and wrote this book".
Taking us places only he can, Safran paints an engrossing, revealing portrait of a dead man, his murderer, the place they lived and the process of trying to find out the truth about anything.
About the author: John Safran is an award-winning documentary-maker of provocative and hilarious takes on race, the media, religion and other issues. John first hit TV screens in 1997 on Race Around The World. Both John Safran's Music Jamboree and John Safran vs God won Australian Film Industry awards for Best Comedy Series and Most Original Concept. Other shows include John Safran's Race Relations, which was nominated for two awards at the international Rose d'Or Festival. John currently co-hosts Sunday Night Safran, a radio talk show on Triple J with cranky but beloved Catholic priest, Father Bob Maguire.
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