Ray, a former Marine, ex-police chief and private investigator is currently working on a series of novels that are loosely based on a lineup of characters and incidents taken from his case files. Prior to these writing projects Ray was a free-lance sportswriter covering the St. Louis Cardinals for over ten years. He founded a fan site that attracted over 10 million visitors, before becoming affiliated with Scout.com and FOX Sports. The crowning moment of Ray's sports writing career came in 2008, with an invitation from former Cardinals' manager, Billy Southworth's family, to represent the manager and his family at the National Baseball Hall of Fame induction ceremonies in Cooperstown, New York. The major influences in Ray's writing early on was Mickey Spillane and in later years, Robert Parker and Stephen J. Cannell.  He like tens of thousands of readers mourns the recent loss of both Robert Parker and Stephen J. Cannell and hopes his Mike Shannon series, in some small way, fills a part of the void, left by the passing of these authors.