Ray Hoy

ABOUT RAY HOY:

A hopeless romantic, chaser of rainbows, lover of dogs, and reluctant realist, Ray Hoy has been a professional writer, editor, publisher, and producer for six decades. During his long media career Ray somehow managed to spend twenty years as a casino marketing consultant working with major properties such as Caesars Tahoe and Wayne Newton Gaming. He specialized in opening land-based casinos, river and ocean-going gambling boats, and casino-horse racing facilities. He left the “casino wars” in 1997.

Ray sold his first freelance article when he was just 16 years old. Now he looks back with great satisfaction at the hundreds of magazine articles, numerous screenplays, and the half-dozen novels he has written. He is the author of the popular Jack Frost Thriller Series, with three books in the series to date: The Vegas Factor, A Proper Time to Die, and Nightmare in Neon. The fourth book in the series, Hard Edges, is scheduled for mid-2022 release.

HOW JACK FROST CAME ABOUT:

“My fictitious Jack Frost is blessed with a warrior’s mentality and toughness, and cursed with a conscience and a fierce loyalty to the few people he counts as friends. Jack is a composite of three Special Forces men I was lucky enough to have met when I was in the casino business. They’re gone now, victims of their chosen profession, but they’re not forgotten, I can assure you. They were amazing men doing an amazing job.

“One of the guys had a Doberman called ‘Scorpio’ and he was impressive, to say the least. Scorpio's gone now, too, but he lives on because I embellished his traits and came up with a constant sidekick for Jack Frost — J.T. Ripper. My Ripper is a Doberman standing 36 inches at the shoulder, and weighing in at 150 pounds, all muscle, teeth and nastiness. He’s grumpy and testy, and he likes an occasional taste of Scotch whiskey. I get as much fan mail for him as I do for Frost (sorry Jack).

“Since Ripper lives only in my imagination, it’s fine that he helps himself to an occasional Scotch. However, I have a soft spot in my heart for all dogs, and they should be kept away from alcohol of any kind. On the other hand, since Ripper is not of this world, he can do whatever he damn well pleases—and believe me, he does.” – Ray Hoy

Ray Hoy has another, more sinister connection to Nevada — he is one of those so-called “Atomic Soldiers” from the 50’s. Ray’s Signal Corps unit was sent to Camp Desert Rock, Nevada to provide communications for a series of atmospheric atomic bomb tests. While stationed there with 5,000 fellow servicemen, he observed a number of nuclear explosions. Today the number of survivors is down to 500 or so, and most of those men died horribly. Ray wrote Letters from Under the Mushroom Cloud, a book about his atomic experiences. Available in Kindle and paperback editions.