Apex Predator Thriller Series: Book 1
Publication Date: April 12, 2022
“Bayard and Holmes’s The Leopard of Cairo is everything I love in a story: action, intrigue, exotic locations. Here is a lightning-fast tale of intrigue, lies, and the mother-of-all terrorist plots. Big story, big adventure, big thumbs-up!”
—JAMES ROLLINS, New York Times bestselling author of Kingdom of Bones
John Viera left his CIA fieldwork hoping for a “normal” occupation and a long-awaited family, but when a Pakistani engineer is kidnapped from a top-secret US project and diplomatic entanglements tie the government’s hands, the Intelligence Community turns to John and his team of ex-operatives to investigate — strictly off the books. They uncover a plot of unprecedented magnitude that will precipitate the slaughter of millions.
From the corporate skyscrapers of Montreal to the treacherous alleys of Baluchistan, these formidable enemies strike, determined to create a regional apocalypse and permanently alter the balance of world power. Isolated in their knowledge of the impending devastation, John and his network stand alone between total destruction and the Leopard of Cairo.
With his work as a CIA field agent in the rearview mirror, John Viera wants nothing more than to slip into a regular routine with his wife and start a family.
However, those plans get rudely interrupted by what initially appears to be a kidnapping but soon evolves into a terrorist plot with significant world ramifications.
Bayard & Holmes deliver an action-packed story in The Leopard of Cairo. With the in-vitro clock ticking, John must tie up loose ends or face his wife’s ultimatum.
Across the globe, the bad guys operate on their own timetable. The deeper John and his team get, the more lies they unravel. This fast-paced international thriller illustrates the challenging world of espionage, which operates much like a roller coaster.
The Leopard of Cairo straps readers in for an immersive international adventure where danger lurks around every corner.
Piper Bayard is an author and a recovering attorney with a college degree or two. She is also a belly dancer and a former hospice volunteer. She has been working daily with her good friend Jay Holmes for the past decade, learning about foreign affairs, espionage history, and field techniques for the purpose of writing fiction and nonfiction. She currently pens espionage nonfiction and international spy thrillers with Jay Holmes, as well as post-apocalyptic fiction of her own.
Jay Holmes is a forty-five-year veteran of field espionage operations with experience spanning from the Cold War fight against the Soviets, the East Germans, and the various terrorist organizations they sponsored to the present Global War on Terror. He is unwilling to admit to much more than that. Piper is the public face of their partnership.
Together, Bayard & Holmes author non-fiction articles and books on espionage and foreign affairs, as well as fictional international spy thrillers. They are also the bestselling authors of The Spy Bride from the Risky Brides Bestsellers Collection and were featured contributors for Social In Worldwide, Inc.
When they aren’t writing or, in Jay’s case, busy with “other work,” Piper and Jay are enjoying time with their families, hiking, exploring back roads of America, talking foreign affairs, laughing at their own rude jokes until the wee hours, and questing for the perfect chocolate cake recipe.
