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Ray Palen

Biography

Ray Palen


Ray Palen is an award-winning actor, drama teacher, and former executive producer/director for 15+ years of a highly successful regional theatre group that is still based on Long Island. Additionally, he is a published playwright with several short plays being registered with the Writers Guild of America. One of his short plays that featured his fictional hero, Sherlock Holmes, won first prize in a Holmes short play contest.

Ray's go-to pastime, however, has been reading. He has been an avid reader and writer throughout his life --- reading at least three books per week for as long as he can remember (a love of reading and lifelong insomnia being the dual cause of this). His book collection numbers in the thousands, and he prides himself on his rare and signed first editions. Ray has been reviewing books, movies and theatre for decades with several online and print publications.

In 2015, Ray relocated from the New York City area, where he lived his entire life, to Central Florida for a job opportunity with Walt Disney World. He also satisfied his burning itch to act again when he starred as the psychopath Harry Roat Jr. in a production of Terrence Knott's "Wait Until Dark," which was performed at Walt Disney World's Contemporary Resort. Recently, Ray has been acting at a popular theatre in Central Florida where he had starring roles in both "And Then There Were None" by Dame Agatha Christie and "Dial 'M' for Murder" by Terrence Knott. Ironically, he was cast in both plays as the villain --- which he plays off as both preferring more complex, villainous roles and relishing the opportunity to show off his native British accent! Currently he works as a Customer Operations Supervisor for the sports-tech entertainment company FanDuel.

His greatest personal production to date is his beautiful daughter, Anna, who is now seven and loves growing up in the shadow of Cinderella Castle. She already has a fond appreciation for books and reading! Ray resides just 20 minutes outside of Walt Disney World in Clermont, FL, with his wife Debbie, his little Princess Anna, and three cats (Mickey, Rory and Lorelei). There is a very good possibility that he is probably reading a novel right now. Cheers!

Ray Palen

Reviews by Ray Palen

by Gregg Hurwitz - Fiction, Suspense, Thriller

Once a black ops assassin for the government known as Orphan X, Evan Smoak broke with the program and went deep underground, using his operational rules and skills to help the truly desperate with nowhere else to turn. When Luke Devine, one of the most powerful men in the world, has a psychological crisis, Evan flies to the East Coast to help him. While there, he learns of a young woman who was kidnapped off the New York City subway, clearly in danger and in need of aid. With no name and few clues, Evan and his team track down the missing woman, who was assaulted and abandoned. Evan offers his help --- and sets out finding the young men responsible. But the woman insists that Evan abandon his usual methods --- no vengeance and, in particular, no killing. Which will prove no easy feat given the mounting incoming threats from all sides.

by James Lee Burke - Fiction, Suspense, Thriller

When a cloaked, disfigured man leaves a dead woman in a garbage bag on Dave Robicheaux’s property, he knows his world and family are about to change. With Valerie Benoit, a detective new to the Iberia Parish Sheriff's Department who is grappling with sexist and racist harassment from their colleagues, and the volatile but fiercely loyal Clete Purcel, Dave embarks on an investigation that brings him into the most dangerous moments of his career and threatens the lives of Valerie and his daughter, Alafair. He encounters a local handyman who leaves cryptic notes and warns of the ghosts who roam the shores of the bayou and is targeted by a vicious New Orleans button man and gangsters from the north.

by Brad Thor with Ward Larsen - Fiction, Political Thriller, Suspense, Thriller

Hemisphere Airlines Flight 777 --- the most advanced jetliner ever built --- disappears without a trace over the North Pole. Crippled by sabotage, it crash-lands on the ice, stranding the surviving passengers in a wasteland of frigid cold and chaos. The real storm, however, is still coming. Hidden inside the wreckage is the prototype for a revolutionary piece of technology that could upend the balance of world power. Now Washington, Moscow and Beijing are racing to be the first on scene to retrieve it --- at any cost. Trapped in the middle of the world’s most dangerous flashpoint are CIA operative Kasey Sheridan and former fighter pilot turned first officer Brett Sharpe. Hunted by enemy forces, they must spirit both the device and its creator across the ice to safety --- before rival superpowers turn the Arctic into a war zone.

by T. Kingfisher - Adventure, Fantasy, Fiction

No one knows exactly how the Goblin War began, but folks will tell you that goblins are stinking, slinking, filthy, sheep-stealing, henhouse-raiding, obnoxious, rude and violent. Goblins would actually agree with all of this, and they might throw in “cowardly” and “lazy”  for good measure. But goblins don't go around killing people for fun, no matter what the propaganda posters say. And when a confrontation with an evil wizard lands a troop of nine goblins deep behind enemy lines, goblin sergeant Nessilka must figure out how to keep her hapless band together and get them home in one piece. Unfortunately, between them and safety lies a forest full of elves, trolls, monsters, and that most terrifying of creatures: a human being.

written by Jo Nesbø, translated by Robert Ferguson - Fiction, Mystery, Suspense, Thriller

Minneapolis, Minnesota, 2016. When a small-time criminal and gun dealer is shot down in the street, all signs point to Tomas Gomez, a quiet man with a mysterious past --- and deep connections to a notorious gang --- who has seemingly vanished into thin air. Other murders soon follow. Meanwhile, Bob Oz, a down-and-out suspended police officer, becomes fascinated by the case: he is obsessed with the notion of hunting down a serial killer who only he can understand. Minneapolis, Minnesota, 2022. An enigmatic Norwegian man with ties to Minneapolis --- a self-described crime writer --- has traveled to the United States to research the Gomez case, in the hopes of writing a book about it. But as his investigation progresses, the writer’s seemingly neutral position reveals itself to be more complicated than the reader is initially led to believe.

by Brian Freeman - Adventure, Fiction, Suspense, Thriller

Shadow --- the head of Treadstone --- has found evidence of massive Chinese espionage activity in the U.S. The spy running the operations is a shadowy American known only by the codename Bai Ze. No one knows who he is, but when Shadow consults the Files --- the hacked AI database she stole from the Chinese --- she discovers that Jason Bourne encountered Bai Ze during an operation eight years earlier. The trouble is, Bourne doesn’t remember him. As Bourne hunts for the elusive spy, he meets a reporter named Laney Reese, who shares his strange affliction: eight years ago, Laney lost her entire memory, too. Bourne is convinced that whatever happened to both of them is at the heart of the Chinese espionage operation. With Laney at his side, Bourne follows a zigzagging trail of clues to a quirky billionaire and his ex-wife, both of whom may have ties to Bai Ze.

by Matthew Quirk - Fiction, Suspense, Thriller

Actress Anna Vaughn is fearless --- on screen, at least. She likes to believe she is as tough as her characters, but off-camera she leads a far quieter life. When her best friend Natalie, her rock, disappears after a night out with a mysterious new man, the signs point to foul play and a circle of spies operating in Manhattan. Anna must use all the tricks she’s learned for her roles to hunt for her missing friend. She crosses paths with Kevin Matthews, an FBI agent on the same trail, tracking a string of killings and disappearances and a powerful clique of oligarchs. With Matthews as her handler, she has only days to prepare for the greatest performance of her life --- going undercover. As the killers close in, her only chance for survival is to become as lethal as the characters she once played.

by J.D. Barker and Adam Roach - Domestic Thriller, Fiction, Suspense, Thriller

Cynthia Burrows thought she'd built the perfect life --- successful law career, loving husband, beautiful daughter. But when 18-year-old Tori vanishes without a trace, Cynthia's carefully constructed world begins to crumble. The school says Tori was excused by family. Security footage shows her leaving with an older man. And the boy she was supposed to date? His name sends chills down Cynthia's spine --- Alexander Beaufort. That's impossible. Alexander Beaufort is the serial killer who destroyed Cynthia's childhood, murdered her best friend, and forced her into witness protection 20 years ago. He's supposed to be locked away forever. But someone is playing a deadly game, leaving clues that drag Cynthia back to her darkest memories. With only three days to find her daughter, she must confront the monster from her past and the shocking secrets Tori has been hiding.

by Don Winslow - Fiction, Suspense, Thriller

THE FINAL SCORE is a collection of six all-new short novels from Don Winslow. The multi-million-dollar casino heist is impossible. That’s what makes it irresistible to a legendary robber facing the rest of his life in prison for his “Final Score.” An ambitious, hard-working college-bound teenager has a side job delivering illegal booze to “The Sunday List” until a crooked cop, a seductive customer and a fake guru threaten to end his dreams. Two wise guys tell each other a “True Story” over breakfast at a diner. It’s all laughs until someone else has to pick up the check. And there are three more stories that are just as twisty: “The North Wing,” “The Lunch Break” and “Collision.”

by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child - Fiction, Suspense, Thriller

It only took six months for the life of Special Agent Dwight Chambers to crumble around him. First, he lost his partner, and then, tragically, his wife. Returning to work at the New Orleans Field Office, Chambers is dismayed to find himself saddled with mentoring a brand-new FBI agent --- A. X. L. Pendergast. As Chambers tries to pull himself together, his enigmatic and exasperating junior partner pulls an outrageous stunt that gets both of them suspended. Pendergast welcomes the banishment, because it gives him the opportunity to investigate a peculiar murder in Mississippi that has captured his fancy. Chambers grudgingly goes along. Thanks in large part to Pendergast’s brilliance and unorthodox methods, they solve the case and find the killer. That is when the true horror begins.