Here on offer is a very nice copy of John Ball's award-winning mystery novel, In the Heat of the Night, first introducing police detective Virgil Tibbs and the basis for the 1967 film of the same name starring Sidney Poitier and Rod Steiger.  This copy is a 1st trade edition, 1st printing of the work published by Harper & Row in 1965.  The dust jacket is protected from further wear by a Mylar sleeve.

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" 'They call me Mr Tibbs!'

A small southern town in the 1960s. A musician found dead on the highway. It's no surprise when white detectives arrest a black man for the murder. What is a surprise is that the black man - Virgil Tibbs - is himself a skilled homicide detective from California, whom inexperienced Chief Gillespie reluctantly recruits to help with the case. Faced with mounting local hostility and a police force that seems determined to see him fail, it isn't long before Tibbs - trained in karate and aikido - will have to fight not just for justice, but also for his own safety.

The inspiration for the Academy Award-winning film starring Sidney Poitier, this iconic crime novel is a psychologically astute examination of racial prejudice, an atmospheric depiction of the American South in the sixties, and a brilliant, suspense-filled read set in the sultry heat of the night."

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John Dudley Ball Jr. (July 8, 1911 – October 15, 1988) was an American writer best known for mystery novels involving the African-American police detective Virgil Tibbs. Tibbs was introduced in the 1965 novel In the Heat of the Night, which won the Edgar Award for Best First Novel from the Mystery Writers of America and was made into an Oscar-winning film of the same name, starring Sidney Poitier and Rod Steiger.

Ball was born in Schenectady, New York, grew up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and attended Carroll College in Waukesha, Wisconsin. He wrote for a number of magazines and newspapers, including the Brooklyn Eagle. For a time he worked as a part-time reserve deputy for the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Office, was trained in martial arts, and was a nudist. In the mid-1980s, he was the book review columnist for Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine. Ball lived in Encino, California, and died there in 1988. He was a member of the exclusive The Baker Street Irregulars, a society of ardent Sherlock Holmes fans. He was invested in the BSI in 1960 as "The Oxford Flier." .  . . 

The above text was taken from, respectively, Penguin Books (via Google Books) and Wikipedia.

[Ball, John. In the Heat of the Night. United Kingdom: Penguin Books, 2016.]