Mississippi Blue 42
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3.6 • 14 Ratings
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
Former quarterback turned Edgar-winning author Eli Cranor throws a glorious game winner in this series debut starring a rookie FBI agent who finds herself caught in the tangled web of a college football empire—and the bloody greed that fuels it.
“Former college quarterback Eli Cranor scores big with Mississippi Blue 42, a fun, provocative crime novel that takes aim at the heart of the American game.”—Michael Koryta, New York Times bestselling author of An Honest Man
Special Agent Rae Johnson grew up on football fields alongside her father, a national-championship-winning coach. Which is exactly why, fresh out of Quantico, she’s sent down to Compson, Mississippi, to investigate the illicit money flowing into a bustling football program in the heart of the Delta. But two days into the assignment things take a dire turn when the university’s star quarterback is flung from the roof of a college bar, lands on a bag of money, and dies.
Hoping to turn a routine fraud case into a career-defining bust, Rae ingratiates herself with the fans, coaches, players, and politicians who make up the university’s complex social hierarchy. With rumors of corruption rustling through the kudzu vines, Rae soon realizes there’s more to the game than what she’d learned as a child. And in order to win, she’ll have to put all her father’s lessons to the ultimate test.
In the vein of Carl Hiaasen and Sue Grafton, Mississippi Blue 42 takes a hard and often hilarious look at the big-money world of college athletics. In Cranor’s capable hands, football isn’t just a game—it’s a front-row seat to the great American show.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
The dark side of college football drives Eli Cranor’s winning crime thriller. As the daughter of a well-known coach, rookie FBI agent Rae Johnson knows why her first assignment is investigating fraud surrounding the University of Central Mississippi’s football program. When star quarterback Matt Talley plunges to his death, the stakes climb much higher. Cranor smartly sets his story in 2013, prior to the more recent chaos of college football, back when universities were still operating under the pretense of amateurism. A former quarterback himself, he includes enough accurate jargon and insightful game action to satisfy fans without slowing things down for the uninitiated. The generational sparring between Johnson and her grizzled, checked-out partner, Frank, also adds some humor to the proceedings. Mississippi Blue 42 scores as both a gripping thriller and a withering commentary on the hypocrisy within the big-money world of major college sports.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Fierce FBI rookie Rae Johnson explores the criminal underbelly of college football in this captivating thriller from Edgar winner and former collegiate quarterback Cranor (Broiler). Set during the 2013–2014 season, the novel finds Rae, daughter of University of Arkansas coach Chuck Johnson, heading onto familiar turf for her first case. She arrives in Compson, Miss., to join burned-out agent Frank Ranchino on a stalled undercover probe of potential fraud in the University of Central Mississippi's football program. Then star quarterback Matt Talley plunges to his death from the roof of a bar, and the game changes—at least in Rae's mind. Disobeying her pension-minded partner's orders to stay in her lane, Rae goes rogue and poses as a sports journalist to pursue her own, increasingly high stakes investigation into the quarterback's death. Though Cranor calls perhaps a few too many audibles as the plot twists escalate in the novel's final third, his quirky characters, playful humor, and insider's view of the college football landscape ensure that this makes it all way to the end zone. Readers will hope to hear more from Rae soon.
