BEGIN PRODUCER'S NOTE: A Navigation Guide is added at the top of the file for easy navigation. • To navigate to a specific section/chapter, hold the CRTL Key and click on it. To return to the Navigation Guide, hold down the ALT key and press the Left Arrow key. • For screen readers, once you hear the word link and the section/chapter title, press the Right Arrow key once to go into the link and then press Enter to activate it and move to that chapter/section. To go back, hold down the CTRL key and press the Home key. This returns you to the top of the file. • For iPad users, tap a section or chapter link to jump directly to it. To return to the beginning of the file, touch the screen to reveal the status bar (where the time is) if it is hidden. Then touch the status bar. • For Mac users, Click on a chapter or section title to jump directly to it. To return to the beginning of the file, hold down the Command key and press the FN and Left Arrow keys. END PRODUCER'S NOTE. BEGIN NAVIGATION GUIDE: IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT BEGIN PRODUCER'S NOTES: CHAPTER 1 CHAPTER 2 CHAPTER 3 CHAPTER 4 CHAPTER 5 CHAPTER 6 CHAPTER 7 CHAPTER 8 CHAPTER 9 CHAPTER 10 CHAPTER 11 CHAPTER 12 CHAPTER 13 CHAPTER 14 Questions for Intensive Study END NAVIGATION GUIDE. IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT JOHN BALL Published by Fitzhenry & Whiteside Limited Vancouver Copyright © 1965 by John Ball ISBN 0-88902-0299 Print pages 194 E-text produced by Provincial Resource Centre for the Visually Impaired/ARC-BC Vancouver, BC, V6P 6G2 2013 ARC-BC (Accessible Resource Centre--British Columbia) This material has been created under the Canadian Copyright Act (CCA) Section 32(1) for individuals with perceptual disabilities. Further distribution or reproduction of this material must comply with this act. All rights reserved. For more information see www.arc-bc.org. BEGIN PRODUCER'S NOTES: Pictures, illustrations and maps have been omitted. This e-text document allows you to navigate directly to the headings within it. You can access these headings by using the Outline view mode in Microsoft Word, or the Navigator in OpenOffice.org Writer. This document has 1 level of headings. In Microsoft Word: Press CONTROL-ALT-O for the Outline view. Press ALT-SHIFT-1 to browse headings of level 1, ALT-SHIFT-2 to browse headings of level 1 and 2 etc. Press ALT-SHIFT-A to expand the view to the entire text. In OpenOffice.org Writer: press F5 for the Navigator. Press TAB for the headings list, then use the up and down arrows to browse the headings. This e-text document also allows you to navigate directly to each section within it by having the Document Map pane open to the left of the document. From the View tab of Microsoft word check off Document Map in the Show/Hide command. You will see a list of all headings which allows you to go to any section you need to. Uncheck it to close the Document Map pane. Page numbers from the print have been retained and have been prefixed with the words "PRINT PAGE” in caps. To locate page 35, for example, use your word processor's "find" command to search for "PRINT PAGE 35". Context breaks in the narrative, which in print appear as a [symbol/blank line], are represented by three asterisks: * * *. END PRODUCER'S NOTES. PRINT PAGE Introductory Note to the Student SMALL EVENTS upset small town life. The arrival of strangers can have a deep and disrupting influence on people who are comfortably living scheduled lives in a small town. Just imagine what happens in the town of Wells, Carolina when a famous stranger is murdered on his first visit. And think of the complications presented when the original suspect proves to be a most capable homicide investigator. A detective of this stature is quite an unusual celebrity for Wells, and this expert is even more conspicuous in a small Southern town. He is a Negro. John Ball has used this story to search out and expose the prejudice, the arrogance, and the ignorance which are rampant in many parts of the world today. A small town in Carolina just happens to be a very real setting for such themes. Mr. Ball would expect each reader to compare himself with the characters he creates in In The Heat of The Night. He would expect us to criticize his characters and their actions. And at the same time he would expect us to evaluate our own characters PRINT PAGE and our own actions. Perhaps we will find that our society is much like the society of Wells, and needs similar evaluation and correction. This detective novel has merit as a story of plot. Details are methodically revealed to the reader and built to a climax in true thriller fashion. Each chapter has a highlight of action or a new clue which will help in the final solution of the crime. At the beginning of the story, the police of Wells encounter a problem--the murder of a distinguished visitor; at the end of the story, the police of Wells have found a solution--they have arrested the real murderer. This procedure takes place in about one week. But it is an action-filled week which touches on the lives of many people in this small town. The main characters interact with one another and their actions also affect the lives of many other people. A feature of the book is the use of the Negro detective. Many elements of fiction can be studied based on Virgil's role in the story. John Ball uses this character to reveal a realistic impression of the place of the Negro in a southern setting, to show the attitude of southern Whites to an educated Negro, to show the conflict between Gillespie and Virgil, between Sam Wood and Virgil, and between the town officials and Virgil. He has done a notable job of presenting a real picture of this small town in the physical sense and in his description of its attitude to Virgil and to the other main characters. Those readers who have associated with such famous detectives as Sherlock Holmes, James Bond, and Matt Helm will surely approve of Virgil Tibbs and credit him as a detective worthy of further reading. He displays the same controlled intelligence, the same shrewd powers of investigation, the same ability to judge and to influence men, and the same `cool` bravery that have made other detectives famous. And our hero in this book displays all of these characteristics in the face of the frightening odds of racial prejudice. Always, Virgil is a PRINT PAGE quiet hero. Only his very presence accounts for his powerful effect. Throughout the novel, John Ball builds his picture of Tibbs as an exceptional man. Nothing angers him; not even his mistreatment at the hands of the citizens of Wells. Mentally and physically he proves his superiority to the other men involved in the investigation. His decisions are always carefully formed and accurate. No one can criticize his conduct in any way; he proves worthy of his reputation as an outstanding detective. Proof of this rests in the fact that he wins the praise of such bigots as Gillespie and Sam Wood. As our admiration of Virgil is extreme in this book, so our dislike of Gillespie is intense. The Chief of Police is a physical giant, new in Wells. He bullies his men and commands the respect of the townspeople with his loud voice and swaggering manner. He is an experienced police officer, but as we see in this story, he allows his skill and his integrity to be clouded by prejudice and vanity. Since he is ambitious, he wishes to impress the people of this small town. He is not willing to admit his mistakes even for the sake of justice. His methods of investigation are totally unsophisticated and they lack the thoroughness of the methods used by Tibbs. Everything about this man is a contrast with Virgil Tibbs. Thus, there is a definite human conflict which heightens the reader's interest from beginning to end. In The Heat Of The Night can be read simply for its story--the orderly investigation and solution of a murder mystery. But it should be studied more intensively as a close study of the racial attitudes of a small town and as a brilliant character creation. PRINT PAGE 01 CHAPTER 1 AT TEN MINUTES TO THREE in the morning, the city of Wells lay inert, hot and stagnant. Most of its eleven thousand people tossed restlessly; the few who couldn't sleep at all damned the fact that there was no breeze to lift the stifling effect of the night. The heat of the Carolinas in August hung thick and heavy in the air. The moon was gone. A few unshaded street lamps in the main business area pushed hard shadows against the closed stores, the surviving movie theater, and the silent gas stations. At the corner where the through highway crossed at right angles, the automatic air-conditioner in the Simon Pharmacy was on, its steady throb purring against the silence of the night. Across the street the one patrol car that the Wells police department kept out all night was pulled up against the curb. Sam Wood, the driver, held his ball-point pen firmly in his solid fingers as he filled out his report sheet.