Mississippi Blue 42 — Eli Cranor

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.

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.