Amazon Editors’ Best Books of 2024 list includes Eli Cranor’s “Broiler” among the 20 best mysteries, thrillers and suspense books of the year.

Cranor is in his second academic year as writer in residence and instructor in the Arkansas Tech University College of Arts and Humanities and the ATU Department of English and World Languages.

“Broiler” is a crime fiction novel published by Soho Crime. The Minneapolis Star Tribune and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel named it to their lists of top summer books for 2024. CrimeReads named “Broiler” most anticipated crime fiction of the year. The South Florida Sun-Sentinel named it one of the best mystery books of 2024.

The book tells the story of Gabriela Menchaca and Edwin Saucedo and the chain of events that unfolds after Saucedo is fired from his job by plant manager Luke Jackson.

“Cranor paints a vivid, devastating portrait of the cruelty surrounding an imbalanced system, all while maintaining a wicked level of tension that drives this powerful story forward,” wrote Dwyer Murphy of CrimeReads. “He is a writer at the top of his game.”

Cranor played college football at Florida Atlantic University and Ouachita Baptist University. He also played professional football and was a high school football coach before launching his writing career. Cranor lives in his hometown of Russellville with his wife and children.

His first novel, “Don’t Know Tough,” won the Peter Lovesey First Crime Novel Contest. It was named to USA Today’s list of Best Books of the Year and one of the New York Times’ Best Crime Novels of 2022. Mystery Writers of America selected Cranor as the winner of the Edgar Allan Poe Award for best first novel by an American author.

In 2023, Cranor released “Ozark Dogs.” It was shortlisted for the Crime Writers’ Association Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award and was nominated for the Barry Award for best mystery or crime novel. A national bestseller, “Ozark Dogs” was recognized by the New York Times, The Guardian, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel and CrimeReads as one of the best novels in its category for 2023.

Learn more about “Broiler” at www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/743692/broiler-by-eli-cranor.