In the Heat of the Night (novel)

Common card · No. 486790

In the Heat of the Night is a 1965 detective novel which won the Edgar Award for Best First Novel for author John Ball. Set in the community of Wells, South Carolina, the main character is a black police detective named Virgil Tibbs passing through the small town during a time of bigotry and the civil rights movement. Tibbs is initially arrested on suspicion of murder, only to help local police solve the crime. Ball went on to feature Tibbs in the subsequent novels The Cool Cottontail (1966), Johnny Get Your Gun (1969), Five Pieces of Jade (1972), The Eyes of Buddha (1976), Then Came Violence (1980) and Singapore (1986). The novel was adapted into the 1967 Oscar-winning film of the same name starring Sidney Poitier and Rod Steiger, as well as a subsequent television series featuring Carrol O'Connor.

Read on Wikipedia · Image Graphic designer Luiz Woods, publisher Harper & Row, Public domain