Photo @WaffleHouse - Heath Whorton
Nationally-bestselling, Edgar Award-winning author, Eli Cranor played quarterback at every level: peewee to professional. These days, he serves as the "Writer in Residence" at Arkansas Tech, where he also lends his eye—and sometimes, his arm—to the university's football team.
Eli's column, "Where I'm Writing From" appears weekly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. His previous works include Don't Know Tough, Ozark Dogs, and Broiler.
For exclusive content and monthly updates, subscribe to Eli's newsletter by clicking HERE.
Eli's column, "Where I'm Writing From" appears weekly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. His previous works include Don't Know Tough, Ozark Dogs, and Broiler.
For exclusive content and monthly updates, subscribe to Eli's newsletter by clicking HERE.
“Eli Cranor has written a brilliant opera buffa for the Deep South, set in red zones and blues bars and Waffle Houses. Borrowing plot lines from Tommy Tuberville and Robert Johnson, pulling characters from William Faulkner and Robert Penn Warren, his gonzo writing delivers big laughs and bigger questions about our beloved game day rites and rituals.”
— John T. Edge, host of SEC Network’s TrueSouth, author of House of Smoke: A Southerner Goes Searching for Home
— John T. Edge, host of SEC Network’s TrueSouth, author of House of Smoke: A Southerner Goes Searching for Home
Selected Praise
Winner of Edgar Award for Best First Novel
Winner of the Peter Lovesey First Crime Novel Contest
A New York Times Book Review Best Crime Novel of 2022
A USA Today Best Book of 2022
A New York Times Best Crime Novel of 2023
The Guardian Best Crime and Thrillers of 2023
A 2024 Great Group Reads Selection
Amazon Editors' Best Book of 2024
“With a sure hand and a knowing smirk, Eli Cranor guides us through a world that is like a religion for some while never losing sight that college football—despite all the money, fame, and power which orbits that world—is still a game. A game played by young men who put everything on the line for a chance to lift themselves and their families out of the perdition of poverty and play under the bright lights on the biggest stage. Mississippi Blue 42 is an amazing achievement by a powerful voice in crime fiction.”
—S. A. Cosby, New York Times bestselling author of All the Sinners Bleed
“Mississippi Blue 42 is the right kind of throwback—a fun, provocative crime caper that calls to mind Elmore Leonard and Carl Hiaasen while continuing to build Cranor's own unique knowledge of the modern South, the games we love, and the lives in the shadows that we often overlook while chasing the bright lights."
—Michael Koryta, New York Times bestselling author of An Honest Man
“Eli Cranor is one of the new big 'uns. I don't have the proper term for what he does with words, calm but knowing prose, and nearly Steinbeckian concern for his characters, their woes and petty victories, dreams and shitty jobs. There is conflict and tension and sorrow, but it's his people who stick.”
—Daniel Woodrell, author of Winter's Bone
“Eli Cranor has a restless imagination that serves him—and his readers—well. Broiler is his latest Trojan Horse of a novel, a satisfying hunk of noir that tells us far more about the American South than those endless newspaper think pieces set in diners and gas stations. Want to understand what's going on in the United States right now? Read Eli Cranor.”
—Laura Lippman, New York Times bestselling author of Prom Mom
“Eli Cranor’s top-shelf debut, Don’t Know Tough, is Southern noir at its finest, a cauldron of terrible choices and even more terrible outcomes . . . There is a raw ferocity to Cranor’s prose, perfectly in keeping with the novel’s examination of curdling masculinity.”
—Sarah Weinman, The New York Times Book Review
“A former quarterback who coached for five years at an Arkansas high school, Cranor brings an insider’s understanding of the game, the region and human nature.”
—Paula Woods, Los Angeles Times
“A major work from a bright, young talent.”
--USA Today, **** out of **** stars