The title, the time and the conceit will draw readers to Kunal Basu's novel, which fictionalises an experiment during the Victorian era to prove racial superiority. The racists after whom the book is named - although the term could equally be levelled at mid-19th-century European society, in general - are Professor Samuel Bates, an English craniologist who bases his belief in the supremacy of Europeans on his precise measurements of skulls from across the globe, and his French rival Belavoix, who is convinced that the European and Negro are as unrelated as, say, a horse and a zebra. To prove their theories they place a black boy and a white girl on an island off Africa with no one but a mute nurse to care for them. Twice a year for 12 years, they plan to visit the children to chart their 'progress', which can take place only in the absence of language, games and societal mores. Bates is sure the girl will prove superior; Belavoix reckons one will end up killing the other. Alive with fascinating ideas, the story is unfortunately deadened by a plodding narrative that suddenly picks up speed towards the end. Racists sparks the imagination, but fails to feed it.