John Ball has 7 audiobooks on Listento.it, narrated by 1 narrator, with an average listener rating of 5★ across 93 ratings. The most-rated is In the Heat of the Night.
In the Heat of the Night
Summary
The pioneering novel featuring African American police detective Virgil Tibbs “They call me Mr. Tibbs” was the line immortalized by Sidney Poitier in the 1967 Oscar-winning movie adaptation of In the Heat of the Night, which won the Edgar Award for Best First Novel and the Crime Writers’ Association Gold Dagger Award and was named one of the 100 Favorite Mysteries of the 20th Century by the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association. Now fans of classic crime can rediscover this suspense-filled novel whose hero paved the way for James Patterson’s Alex Cross, George Pelecanos’s Derek Strange, and other African American detectives. 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 not the killer but a skilled homicide detective, passing through racially tense Wells, South Carolina, on his way back to California. Even more surprising, Wells’s new police chief recruits Tibbs to help with the investigation. But Tibbs’s presence in town rubs some of the locals the wrong way, and it won’t be long before the martial arts-trained detective has to fight not just for justice, but also for his own safety.
©1965 John Ball (P)2015 Brilliance Audio, all rights reserved.
Singapore
Summary
When Madame Motamboru, widow of the assassinated president of Bakara, is framed for murder in Singapore, she requests that her old friend Virgil Tibbs take part in the investigation. Because of US interests in the area, Tibbs is cleared for passage. Upon arrival, Tibbs finds that the police there are convinced of Madame Motamboru's guilt. All the evidence says that only she could have shot the man who visited her hotel suite. It's up to Tibbs to save her from hanging by uncovering the truth and outwitting the sinister organization that wants her dead. And when Tibbs gets involved in another more bizarre murder case, it will take all of his legendary intelligence and cool-headed savvy to find the answers to two deadly and, apparently, unsolvable puzzles.
©1986 John Ball (P)2015 Brilliance Audio, all rights reserved
Then Came Violence
Summary
Virgil Tibbs, the cool, highly competent black detective of the Pasadena Police Department, returns one day to his bachelor apartment to find that it has been expertly stripped to the bare walls - not a thing remains to show that he has ever lived there. At headquarters he is given a cryptic note from Police Chief McGowan, sending him to a certain address in the better section of Pasadena. When he arrives he finds his possessions carefully installed in a fine new home. But that's not all. The door is opened by a very attractive young woman who informs him that she is Mrs. Virgil Tibbs. He has never seen her before, and he certainly isn't responsible for the two children who greet him as their father. Meanwhile a brutal holdup is followed by an execution-type hanging of one of the bandits. More violence follows, and Pasadena's ace homicide investigator is tested to the limits by a double assignment calling for every bit of his tact, skill, and discipline.
©1980 John Ball (P)2015 Brilliance Audio, all rights reserved.
The Eyes of Buddha
Summary
A partially decomposed body of a young woman is discovered in a park in Pasadena, California. The woman was strangled but not sexually assaulted. The police suspect she might be a missing heiress who disappeared over a year ago, but dental records prove them wrong. But who is she? And is there a link between the heiress and this corpse? The celebrated detective Virgil Tibbs reshapes the known facts regarding these two women and discovers astonishing connections. His quest leads him around the world to Katmandu where, beneath the searing "eyes of Buddha" at the famed Monkey Temple, he learns the truth in a striking denouement.
©1976 John Ball (P)2015 Brilliance Audio, all rights reserved
The Cool Cottontail
Summary
The Cool Cottontail is the second in the Virgil Tibbs mystery series. In this mystery, Tibbs finds himself at a nudist colony in Los Angeles where the victim (who was not one of the guests) is found floating dead in the pool. Set against this unusual backdrop, the guests of the resort prefer guarding their secrets to solving the murder mystery, particularly when the investigating detective is black. Author John Ball often used social issues of the day to feature as issues in his work, making his work controversial but at the same time, some of the best and most relevant fiction of his time. Along with racism other social taboos, Ball had no problem with nudism; naked people are the least of the problems these characters face.
©1996 John Ball (P)2015 Brilliance Audio, all rights reserved
Five Pieces of Jade
Summary
Who murdered the importer? Was it Yumeko, the beautiful half-black, half-Japanese girl who lived with him? Johnny Wu, a rich Chinese American? Another customer? Or a political enemy from overseas? Homicide detective Virgil Tibbs finds himself in the middle of a deadly situation involving hard drugs, Communist Chinese agents, and the exotic settings of the jade trade as he coolly tracks down the murderer.
©1972 John Ball. (P)2015 Brilliance Audio, all rights reserved.
Johnny Get Your Gun
Summary
Johnny Get Your Gun (also known as Death for a Playmate) is the third in the Virgil Tibbs mystery series that began with In the Heat of the Night. In this story, a nine-year-old boy, lonely after a family move, shoots an older child who stole something from him, thus igniting the militant blacks and racist whites of 1960s Pasadena into a black-white conflict involving riots, brutalities, a chase through Disneyland, and a heart-warming as well as heart-breaking scene toward the end of the book that takes place in a baseball park of the California Angels. Here you will find childhood gone awry, racism that ought to shock but in context does not (we know it too well), and political conflicts that add fuel to the fire.
©1969 John Ball (P)2015 Brilliance Audio, all rights reserved.