Black and white issue

Amid the superheated racial tensions and routine lynchings that took place in the American South during the 1930s, some of the brave souls who quietly worked to expose such shocking, community-based murder were black men whose skin was pale enough to pass as white. Their risky, near-suicidal endeavours were dubbed "going incognegro". From such gripping historical fact emerges Mat Johnson's excellent and thought-provoking murder-mystery Incognegro, which ultimately provides a disturbing assessment of race and American self-image. British artist Warren Pleece provides fine-lined, black-and-white artwork that is not only replete with superb period detail but also eminently captures the haunting, barbaric underbelly of a supposedly mature culture.

Danny Graydon