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Mississippi Blue 42

Narrated by Dan John Miller

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Book 1 of Special Agent Rae Johnson
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Pub Date Aug 05 2025 | Archive Date Aug 08 2025
RBmedia | Recorded Books

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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 UCM’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.

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...


Advance Praise

“A powerful case for the proposition that 'college football wasn’t a game at all; it was a business.” —Kirkus Reviews

“Quirky characters, playful humor, and insider’s view of the college football landscape ensure that this makes it all way to the end zone.” —Publishers Weekly

Mississippi Blue 42 is a captivating read by a writer delivering a sure enough win. The characters are sharply observed, the story unfolding with cold-eyed precision.” Gary Phillips, author of Ash Dark as Night

“If you’re a football fan who can’t bear to wait two months until the start of the season, this novel — the first in a planned series, by a real-life former football quarterback and coach, and about an FBI agent investigating a college program — should hit the spot.” —Orange County Register

“Eli Cranor, who made his bones writing crime fiction about Arkansas, takes aim at the folks next door in this romp of a book, set in Waffle Houses and college bars, on football fields and lonely blacktops. If you’ve followed the volleyball stadium funding scandal in Mississippi, or the political career of a certain former football coach in Alabama, you’ll recognize some of the plot lines that Cranor sets in motion to tell a story of sports payola in the years before NIL money began to flow, a novel that reads as funny as it does true.” —Garden & Gun

“A powerful case for the proposition that 'college football wasn’t a game at all; it was a business.” —Kirkus Reviews

“Quirky characters, playful humor, and insider’s view of the college football...


Available Editions

EDITION Audiobook, Unabridged
ISBN 9798897564057
PRICE $24.99 (USD)
DURATION 12 Hours, 48 Minutes

Available on NetGalley

NetGalley Shelf App (AUDIO)

Average rating from 7 members


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