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I thought this went up months ago, but I just found it in my drafts folder, with some vague notes in the last section. I’m relatively unable to follow most of them, and wish I could. So, had you seen this in August/September, it would’ve been better. But let’s see what I can do here.

Mississippi Blue 42

by Eli Cranor

DETAILS:
Series: Rae Johnson, #1
Publisher: Soho Crime
Publication Date: August 5, 2025
Format: Hardcover
Length: 370 pg.
Read Date: August 7-11, 2025

So much depended on a ball stitched together from thirty-two panels of waterproofed leather. The fans came to see what the players did with that ball: the blazing touchdown runs, the high-flying, bone-crunching hits. And the players played for peanuts. That was the only way any enterprise could achieve the sort of profit margins enjoyed by universities with nationally ranked teams. The trick, though, was convincing the rest of the country that college football was not a business, but instead a game, a contest played on the field of higher education, which also served the Chiefs well when it came time to file their taxes.

Because the University of Central Mississippi was an educational organization, it enjoyed a 501(c)(3) status, which meant nearly every dollar the institution made was exempt from federal income tax. It was the same exception granted to churches…

Yes, Mississippi was in the Bible Belt, but the real holy day, the day when every true Southerner bowed at the altar, was game day. And in just a few more hours, the congregation would gather inside their recently renovated, five-hundred-million-dollar cathedral.

What’s Mississippi Blue 42 About?

Rae Johnson is the only daughter of a legendary college football coach and spent most of her life working to be one, too. But at a certain point, she hit the wall of misogyny (with her own father as a spokesman for the wall) and had to find a new career path. Naturally (?), she chose the FBI. We all see the overlap, right?

Anyway, she’s fresh out of the Academy and is assigned to her first case. She’s been sent to help investigate some financial crime surrounding the University of Central Mississippi’s football program. She knows she got the assignment due to her father, which grates her pride. But, she’s not going to back down from the challenge. Her partner in the investigation has been there for months and hasn’t gotten very far, but he’s determined to uncover the problems that he knows are there.

The veteran agent is just getting her acclimated to the investigation when the team’s quarterback

The Fight for the Soul of Moses McCloud

Moses stared at him, still not sure what to make of Cerge’s story, but thinking it felt right somehow, the wildness of his tale in tune with the flashy locker room: the nude white boys, the ping-pong table, the barber chairs. This wasn’t real life. It was all a dream, a four-year fantasy the players paid for with their lives. Even if they did make it to the League, even if they got paid, they still paid for it. And it wasn’t just their knees or shoulders, not even their brains. It went deeper than that. Once their playing days were over, they would be booted out of Eden, resigned to the stands to watch as the next crop of finely tuned athletes took their place. As extravagant as a Saturday spent tailgating in the Glades was, it did not compare to the roar of the crowd. Only gladiators know true glory.

This book, in many ways, seems to be a fight over the soul of the backup quarterback thrust into a leadership position—will he succumb to the culture of bagmen and fame, or will he risk his potential windfall and give Rae the information she needs?

I really like Moses from the beginning—sure, he’s got all the maturity of a college freshman (read: not as smart as he thinks he is, too easily distracted/led along by good-looking women), but there’s something about him you can’t help but like. I really think the battle for his soul angle isn’t that filled with suspense—it’s just the adults around him that fail to understand what he’s saying and what kind of guy he is all along.

But that actually makes the whole thing more entertaining for everyone who isn’t Moses.

What do I think about this as a series debut?

According to the press kit for this book:

Mississippi Blue 42 is the first in what is planned to be an ongoing series starring FBI Agent Rae Johnson as she and a cast of recurring characters explore crime in the world of sports.

Which sounds promising—especially the “world of sports” part. Not because I’m a big sports guy, but I had a hard time imagining Rae looking into some other kinds of crime because Cranor baked the sports-mindset so deeply into her. You put her in an art crime, or a counterfeit money situation? I just don’t see it working as well (but I was ready to try). Rae hunting down a crew of bank robbers would be interesting to see, I just don’t know if she gets into their heads. But even if you move her to professional sports—even something other than football, she’s got the right mindset, the right background to really give a series legs.

Rae reminds me of Ellie Hatcher, Renée Ballard, and Eve Ronin. She’s got ambition, she’s willing to cut corners (maybe too many), she’s determined to make it in a man’s world—and she lets all of that lead her into some blunders as she learns her way. The question is: will she learn from them? The other women did—I trust she will, too. But making those mistakes is fodder for good fiction along the way.

I do wonder what characters from this book will recur. One strong candidate is Rae’s friend who failed a drug test and got booted from the FBI Academy. She had a strong presence early on in the book, but she just vanished later on. Which makes sense for reasons of this book’s plot, but not if you’re establishing a series character. Beyond her, I’m pretty curious.

So, what did I think about Mississippi Blue 42?

This was about the players and the game they’d been forced to play. The contest that took place on the field was nothing compared to the battle that went down in Waffle Houses, seedy motel rooms, used car lots, and a laundry list of other skeevy locales. That’s where boys like Moses McCloud had been fighting for so long nobody even saw them as boys anymore. These were young men whose talents had been exploited to pay their coaches’ multimillion-dollar contracts, secure billion-dollar TV deals, and provide highly visible recruiting for their respective universities. College football wasn’t a game at all; it was a business, a completely self-sufficient economy powered by young, mostly Black athletes.

There are more “bad guys” in this book than in most its size—and I’m really unable to come up with a drop of sympathy or empathy for any of them. I wasn’t prepared for that. I’m used to Cranor helping me see the humanity of his characters. Not that I don’t see humanity here—all I see is the worst of it. Yes, there are some who are less-worse than others, and there are a few that you can easily call The Worst. Right up to the last revelation (which Rae really should’ve seen coming), the worst of America is on display. If you pull up a classic D&D Alignment Chart, you have a couple of Lawful Evil characters, many Neutral Evil characters, and a couple on the extreme end of Chaotic Evil, too. Worse, you have a Lawful Evil who pretends to be Lawful Good—and someone who is convinced he’s Lawful Good, but is really a deluded and easily manipulated True Neutral.

Sorry, that’s not helpful at all, but once I started thinking along those lines, I couldn’t stop. Hopefully, someone out there appreciates it.

The hypocrite bothers me more than they should (because it’s so obvious). The easily manipulated head coach really makes me miss the misguided integrity of the coach from Cranor’s Don’t Know Tough.

And honestly, not much better can be said of most of Rae’s allies through this. But they’re trying. I’m pretty sure they are, anyway. I found them entertaining anyway, and didn’t spend a moment hoping they’d find their comeuppance.

This established a strong world and at least one character that we can follow—I’m very curious to see how this experience shapes Rae’s career (at least the early days of it, obviously) and how she sees herself. But more importantly, this was an entertaining, gripping, roller-coaster of a ride. The series stuff can work itself out—right now, all I want to focus on is Mississippi Blue 42, and it’s a great ride.

You gotta check it out if you’re a Cranor reader (and probably already have). If the Venn Diagram of your interests includes college sports and Crime Fiction, you’ll enjoy this item from the overlap set. Actually, you’ll probably enjoy it if you don’t care about college sports at all, just Crime Fiction. Personally, most of what I know about college sports comes from I Am Charlotte Simmons—and Cranor tells the same story (essentially) about the industry it does, but in a more concise and focused way.

Okay, I’m rambling. Go get this thing, you’ll be glad.

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