THE First Team NOTE: Our Image Does Not Match the One Oneline. Please Look At Our Listing

The First Team is a 1971 thriller by John Ball (also author of the more well-known "Judo Boy"). The book is set in a future history of a United States living under a brutal Soviet occupation, at a date which is not specified but seems to be the late 1970s, and can retroactively be considered a kind of alternate history. Ball is best known for having created the character of the African American detective Virgil Tibbs, who successfully challenges the racist society of the 1960s racist South in the novel "In the Heat of the Night", which established for this writer a solid liberal reputation quite at variance with the present book.

The son of a scientist, John Ball was born in Schenectady, New York, and grew up in Milwaukee. He attended Carroll College in Wisconsin. He subsequently worked as a science staff writer on Fortune, a music critic and feature writer for the Brooklyn Eagle, a daily columnist on the New York World-Telegram & Sun, a broadcaster for a Washington radio station, and a Director of Public Relations for the Institute of Aerospace Sciences. His In the Heat of the Night was awarded a Mystery Writers of America "Edgar" for the Best First Mystery Novel of the Year, and since had been followed by The Cool Cottontail, also featuring his African-American detective, Virgil Tibbs. Mr. Ball has also authored a number of notable young adult books.