To Skin a Leopard

TO SKIN A LEOPARD is the first book of the trilogy, DECEIT OF THE EMPIRE, set in 19th Century South Africa, based on true events perpetrated by the British Imperial Army on the Xhosa people of the Eastern Cape.

It tells of the initial colonisation of the British Empire in Africa from the Cape Colony and the ruthless war machine that is the British Army, controlled by an extreme, dark society called the ELOS, which has infiltrated the governments in London and in Cape Town.

The Xhosa tribes have risen to war with the British Army only to be defeated and rise again. The ELOS's mission is to destroy the Xhosa clans, to stop them rising to war, holding up the ELOS's designs of conquering Southern Africa. The slave ships have been put on notice by the ELOS to be ready to load the surviving Xhosa natives to be sold to the Southern States of America and north to Lourenco Marques in Mozambique for the Portuguese and the Boers inland.

Only Jamie Fyvie and Iain McColl can prevent the ethnic cleansing of the Xhosa people. They have been recruited by the Secret Field Police, to immigrate to the Cape Colony, to work covertly under the guise of businessmen, find the ELOS infiltrators and capture or remove them. They also have clues to prove the existence of ancient relics and treasure buried by the Knights Templar five hundred years in the past. If the treasure does exist it must not fall into the hands of the ELOS to fund their ambitions of despotism.

On the ship sailing to Cape Town, Jamie and Iain battle with mutineers. Jamie is seduced by the ship owner’s wife who is in league with James Storer. Storer is the Colonial Secretary in the Cape Government, but is also the covert elder of the ELOS in the Cape and is trying to kill Jamie and Iain. Jamie comes to regret his liaison with the woman as his feelings for the woman’s step-daughter grow deeper.