Mississippi Blue 42

‘Eli Cranor is that rare writer who can make you gasp, cry and cheer often in the same paragraph’ S. A. COSBY

Special Agent Rae Johnson grew up on football fields alongside her father, a national-championship-winning coach. Which is exactly why she was chosen to investigate the illicit money flowing into the University of Central Mississippi’s football program. But her case takes a dire turn when UCM’s star quarterback is flung off a college bar’s roof and lands on a bag full of money.

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.

Praise for Eli Cranor:

‘A gritty, authentic triumph, one howling to be turned into a film or TV series’ FINANCIAL TIMES

‘Atmospheric and tense thriller that has TV series written all over it’ THE SUN

‘Southern noir at its finest, a cauldron of terrible choices and even more terrible outcomes’ NEW YORK TIMES

‘Cranor’s characters bristle with desperation and frustrated masculinity, a volatile cauldron of emotion that brings tension to every page’ STEPH CHA

‘Not to be missed.’ MEGAN ABBOTT

‘A major work from a bright, young talent’ USA TODAY

Author Biography

Eli Cranor lives and writes from the banks of Lake Dardanelle, a reservoir of the Arkansas River nestled in the heart of True Grit country. His work has won The Greensboro Review’s Robert Watson Literary Prize and been featured in Missouri Review, Oxford American, Ellery Queen, The Strand and others. Eli also pens a weekly column, “Where I’m Writing From” for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, and his craft column, “Shop Talk,” appears monthly at CrimeReads. His critically acclaimed debut novel, Don’t Know Tough, won the Peter Lovesey First Crime Novel Contest.