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John Ball, winner of an Edgar Award for In the Heat of the Night, found his research into novels about police officers
so interesting and he became a reserve deputy for the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. Indeed, his last book which was published posthumously, The Van: A Tale of Terror, is about the search for a pair of serial killers by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s
Department’s homicide division. In the Heat of the Night “tells the
story of Virgil Tibbs, a black detective tracking a murderer in a small Southern town. The novel inspired both the 1967 film
starring Sidney Poitier and Rod Steiger and the television series starring Carroll O’Connor and continues to delight
readers with its gripping narrative and honest look at race relations during the Civil Rights Era.”
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