This is a wonderful love story about a beautiful geisha and an 'everyman' (who considers himself an utter failure with women). After that it is a terrific story of the initial clash of two cultures, with people (from both) having misconceptions and prejudices about the other. In the end just about every character realizes how wrong those initial ideas were and that an open mind is a pretty valuable commodity. [Would love to see this turned into a really good movie...with Russell Crowe or Ioan Gruffudd perhaps as Richard Seaton? (It would have to be set in the '60s - before computers, world travel became so common and when isolationism was the norm in the US).] One of my favorite books, to be reread often.

This is one of my all time favorite books. The descriptions of the cultures coliding are wonderful. The characters all grow and learn from each other. Richard learns to like himself and to enjoy the differences between life in Japan and Boston. The description of Richard's first experience in the Japanese bath totally describes the feelings of being overseas, alone, and totally confused.

My experiences as a US Army family member in Japan were good and my memories are happy ones. This book reminds me of all the reasons I fell in love with the country and it's gentle people.

This is a wonderful love story.

John ball has done great job in narrating the experience of an American facing the Japanese culture with the fine tunes of romance woven in it. The characters of people are nicely built. The description of Japanese culture is excellent. The author has dealt the realationship with Richard and Miss One thousand spring blossoms with great sensitivity and very realistically. The supporting characters play a very strong but subtle role in bulding the story. A great reading.... Really a master piece from a great story writer. A Must read.

If you enjoyed The First Team, you will surely also enjoy Taylor Caldwell's The Devil's Advocate. It's another good story about an American underground/resistance movement, in America, after a take-over by a hostile government.

When you read about the underground during the wars in Europe, it is hard to believe that any country could of won without it. The USA is not so big that it can not be taken down due to a lacked government. I would hope that the USA has something and someone intelligent enough to think ahead and prepare for the weak and inadaquate times to come. I thought that this book had a scary feeling of realism intertwined with fiction.

I had read The First Team when I was a kid in Jr. High School - my dad bought these books, and I wondered what kept him up at night. When I read this paranoid Soviets-Invade-America thriller, I was completely enthralled by the detail, the character of Hewlitt, and the theme. This was indeed pre-Reagan times, America looked like it very well could die, and we were looking for heroes. We got one in Hewlitt, and as much as I like Tom Clancy's early books, this book is every bit as good as "The Hunt for Red October" (did Clancy "borrow" the idea from Ball?) and "Cardinal of the Kremlin." It is sadly out of print, but it deserves re-release as a historical political thriller (along with "The Jesus Factor" by Edwin Corley and the books of Fletcher Knebal). I recently ordered this out-of-print book from Amazon, and received, oddly enough, a British version of the book, complete with spelling changes to British-English! Nonetheless, I found myself once again engaged in this book, and I literally stayed up all night to finish it. The quaint sexism and Ball's restrained sex scenes are charming to 1999 sensibilities, and the theme of the USSR invading America without a shot seems incredibly anachronistic and unlikely - but the main idea that constant vigilance is the price of liberty remains as cogent today as then. I thank Amazon Books for finding this book for me in great condition, and will treasure it! And no, I don't get paid to say that - no one can buy me.

I wonder if John Ball is alive today. I'd love to option the book to make this into a film. I'd cast Donna Murphy as Barbara Stoneham, Val Kilmer as Percival, Danny Glover as Frank Jordan, Will Smith as Davy, and perhaps Alec Baldwin or Tim Matheson as Raleigh Hewlitt, the heroic Russian Language translator of the White House staff. Adm. Barney Haymarket could be played by James Earl Jones or even John Vernon (against type), and Zalinsky - ah, someone with a REAL Russian accent, cold as steel. Col. Rostovich needs an evil, vicious character actor, perhaps Rutger Hauer.

Does anyone know if John Dudley Ball, author of "In the Heat of the Night" and "The First Team", is still alive?

I read this book as novel in school and Iwas wondering if anyone out there had a character sketches for Bill Gillespie, Virgil Tibbs, and Sam Wood.

I have watched the movie when it came on TBS. Then I decide to read the book. I thought the book was going to be boring, but I couldn't put it down. The book takes place in an Carolinan city call Wells. There's the chief, William Gillespie and the officer, Sam Woods. Suddenly, an African American dectective name Virgil Tibbs, which is from Pasenda, California, was coming through Wells, but the cops caught him. At the station, Tibbs told the chief he was a detective from California. This book will enlight and anger people on how blacks was treated in the deep south.

Ok, in the book, they are busy trying to solve a murder of some musician. So, Tibbs decide to help them, because he was a detective. They finally find the criminal, and they find out Sam Woods was a pervert. And at the end, Tibbs return back to California and Gillespie decide to become friends with Tibbs. Ok, I read this book 2-3 times. I also watch the series on TNT and WGN and I can't even change the channels... Read the book today, because you won't be able to put it down!

Winner of the Edgar Award for Best First Mystery and subsequently made into an Academy Award winning movie and successful TV series, In the Heat of the Night is only a decent mystery, but it's a great book about race. Though the book is different in many respects from the better known film, at its core it is still about the dilemmas faced by a proud black detective who is forced to help with a murder investigation in the Deep South, and by the white police officers who are forced to confront the disparity between their prejudices and the reality of this competent, likable fellow officer.

Though the main clash of characters occurs between Virgil Tibbs and Chief Gillespie--particularly in the movie where Poitier and Steiger were the stars--in many ways the key character in the novel is Sam Wood, the conscientious patrolman, later a suspect in the crime, who is young enough, open-minded enough, and resentful enough of Gillespie to give Tibbs a fair shake. More than anything, Sam is enamored with his own role as a law enforcement officer. He's clearly looking for a role model and it's fascinating to watch him struggle with the idea that Virgil, though black, may be the ideal person to emulate.

The racial and moral questions that animate the story help to overcome some rather stilted dialogue and a too frequent recourse to ending scenes with a shocking cliffhanger revelation from Virgil--for instance : "You see, sir, I know it for a fact that you've got the wrong man." Then again this was Ball's maiden effort, and some lapses into formula are to be expected. The book deserves to be read and remembered for its groundbreaking presentation of an unreservedly heroic black and its salutary message : that men should be judged by the content of their character rather than the color of their skin. The online magazine Salon ran a column several years ago suggesting that the film version of In the Heat of the Night might be one of the most profound movies ever made about race in America. The book too can stand its own ground alongside other, more "literary," texts like Invisible Man and Native Son; and it's message of hope and the possibility of progress has proven it more prophetic than its more revered rivals.

GRADE : A-

This book is not like any ive read before. Its very strange and is very thought provoking. I liked it a lot however. I wouldnt suggest just reading it casually because its meaning is far to deep to skim. I recommend. Enjoy