The Man Who Lived Underground by Richard Wright

Fred Daniels, a black man, is picked up randomly by the police after a brutal murder in a Chicago neighbourhood and taken to the local precinct where he is tortured until he confesses to a crime he didn't commit.

After signing a confession, he escapes from the precinct and takes up residence in the sewers below the streets of Chicago. This is the simple, horrible premise of Richard Wright's scorching novel, The Man Who Lived Underground, a masterpiece that he was unable to publish in his lifetime.