An unlikely journalist, a Mississippi murder plagued by revelations, and a fascinating true-crime story of race, money, sex, and power in the modern American South - all told in the sharply original style of Louis Theroux and Jon Ronson.

In 2009 John Safran, a controversial Australian journalist, spent an uneasy few days interviewing one of Mississippi's most notorious white supremacists. A year later, he hears that the man has been murdered by a young black man. But this is far from a straightforward race killing.

Safran flies back to Mississippi in a bid to discover what really happened, immersing himself in a world of clashing white separatists, black lawyers, police investigators, oddball neighbours and the killer himself. In the end, he discovers just how profoundly complex the truth about someone's life - and death - can be.

A brilliantly innovative true-crime story. Safran paints an engrossing and revealing portrait of race, money, sex and power in the modern American South.

'John Safran's captivating inquiry into a murder in darkest Mississippi is by turns informative, frightening and hilarious' - John Berendt, author of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

"Funny and gripping and wonderfully weird . . . It's a tremendous book. I can't praise it too highly" - Louis Theroux

"A hilarious and bizarre story that leads where you least expect it. John Safran has for years been one of my favourite journalists - forever pushing the boundaries, funny, startling, a hurricane" - Jon Ronson, author of The Men Who Stare at Goats and The Psychopath Test

"Stunning" - Men's Style

"A winning combination of memoir, true crime and gonzo journalism . . . a compulsive summer read" - Sunday Mail

"One of the best pieces of sustained, rigorous journalism I've read in twenty years. It is absolutely magnificent - smart, and wry, and emotional too" - Caroline Overington

"Witty, insightful, compelling - In Cold Blood for our generation" - Eddie Perfect

"The elegance of this book is that its axis is a resounding 'perhaps' . . . It is this moral ambivalence that draws readers to the true crime genre, and Safran nails it" - Weekend Australian

"[Safran] has written a marvellous book which I cannot put down" - Melbourne Observer

"Mississippi is like a trampoline for [Safran's] eccentricities. But the form and content of the story bring out an unfamiliar side of him" - Sydney Morning Herald

"John Safran's captivating inquiry into a murder in darkest Mississippi is by turns informative, frightening and hilarious. It is enlivened by a swarm of creepy locals and a torrent of astonishing details--such as hedge clippers put to surgical use in the performance of an official autopsy" - John Berendt, author of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

"'Murder in Mississippi is a page turner'" - The Times

"Weaving a tale that is simultaneously about race, failed systems, money, sex, family and simple rage, Safran truly did lose a year in Mississippi, and getting lost with him is a joy" - Kirkus reviews