You may have noticed I've taken a short break from my summer movie series celebrating great redneck cinema or hixploiltation films of the 1970s.

I had a pretty good reason. I was facing my annual deadline from my longtime publisher G.P. Putnam's Sons for next year's book. Some may wonder why the hell would they need a book now, spring 2011 is pretty far away.

But that's the way it works. A novel is usually turned in about a year from pub date to account for all the sales, marketing, and promotion for a national release.

So what the hell is this book about?

Last year I was approached by my editor -- who also edits some folks like Tom Clancy, Randy Wayne White, John Sandford, Robert Crais, W.E.B. Griffin, and Patricia Cornwell to name a handful -- to create a brand-new series for Putnam. Well, when you look at my editor's stable, any writer would jump at the opportunity.

This is where my writing and latest posts celebrating Southern cinema converge. The debut novel -- THE RANGER -- introduces a U.S. Army war vet Quinn Colson -- 17 missions as a Ranger in Iraq and Afghanistan -- returning home to a pretty much busted, rural county where he grew up and tried his best to leave.

I have always loved those great '70s gems like Walking Tall, Mr. Majestyk, Billy Jack and White Lightning. THE RANGER was absolutely born from the mold of those heroes as we find ourselves in a similar time and place to post Vietnam, veterans returning home to hard times. Battle hard vets who are still in their teens and twenties.

This is the first novel introducing us to our hero and backwoods Tibbehah County -- a place rife with corruption and greed and for the last three decades run by Quinn's uncle, the sheriff. This is the kind of county you often find yourself stopping through on a road trip, filling up with gas and moving on, recognizing trouble to follow.

As a warrior returning home, Quinn will be faced with some hard decisions about exposing the corruption and in turn binding himself with the county's future. It's a pretty rugged landscape that may remind folks of a modern-day Deadwood or my earlier novel Wicked City.

I've always been struck how some counties in backwoods Mississippi almost seem like something from the frontier, an outpost stuck in time. I guess you might say this is more contemporary Western than just crime novel -- a story of shifting allegiances, blood oaths, and quick and dirty gun battles.

Sometimes the toughest part of being a writer is waiting for a story you're excited about to get in your readers' hands. But in the coming months, I'll be posting more updates on this new series and perhaps a chapter or two with jacket design. It's always fun for me to see a book (even better a series) take shape and hope you'll enjoy being part of the process.

-- Ace