In The Heat of The Night Author:John Ball A southern town seething with suspicion and hate. The dead body of a brutally slain man. — When Sam Wood, an officer with the Wells police department discovers the body of a famous Italian conductor lying in the road, it spells trouble for the small Carolina town. For the conductor was in town to perform at a musical festival designed to lift the... more » town's sagging economy. The chief of police, Bill Gillespie, is no detective. But salvation inadvertently arrives when Wood arrests a black man with a wallet full of money in the train station. That man, Virgil Tibbs, a detective from Pasadena, quickly becomes Gillespie's out card. But as the tenacious Tibbs begins to hunt down the killer, there are plenty of people in town who prefer that their racial hierarchy remain intact, regardless of the truth.« less
Excellent snapshot of the time, 1965, in the southern US, interesting view of racial prejudice in a small town. I was surprised at how forward thinking and though provoking it was.