Virgil Tibbs returns to Sparta and joins the police force as chief of detectives.His arrival is met with resistance from police chief Bill Gillespie - who resents having an officer hired without his approval.Virgil has trouble adjusting to the small, antiquated police force.Tibbs' first case is a racially charged murder case that is soon complicated when the suspect is murdered in his cell.

The investigation into the brutal murders of a young girl and the suspect in her death, leads Tibbs and Gillespie to the son of one of Sparta's wealthiest and most influential citizens.As they come closer to the truth things become dangerous for Virgil.

The affair between the husband of a wealthy woman and her distant cousin leads to her murder. Virgil immediately suspects the pair.But he has a difficult time persuading Gillespie, who is a long time friend of the man and Bubba, who has been seeing the cousin.Bubba and Virgil clash again and Virgil is frustrated when the Chief rejects his theory about the crime.

Racial tensions run high when a married white woman has an affair with a black businessman from New York.Meanwhile Virgil is not happy when the Chief enlists his aid in tracking down Bubba's cousin, a suspected moonshiner.

Virgil refuses to let go of a grudge against a wealthy former classmate who cheated him out of a scholarship.The man has promised city leaders that he will move his business to Sparta,but not all of his business interests are legal.The nephew of an old friend of Gillespie's finds his life in danger after he steals drugs stored in the businessman's mansion.

In this humorous episode Virgil and the Chief arrest a man for bigamy.It soon becomes a polygamy case after an endless parade of wives come to visit their husband.

The Sparta police search for a killer and his girlfriend.But the case becomes personal when they take Althea and the grandson of one of the victims hostage.