Ray Rao grew up in India, and is intimately familiar with the complexity of its multi-faceted culture, rich history, and many traditions. He also recognizes the many cross-currents in Indian society that can elicit both the best and worst in humanity. That knowledge was in full evidence in his gripping debut thriller, Bloodbath, which showed how India’s ethnic and religious fault-lines could be exploited and weaponized to bring the world to the brink of nuclear Armageddon. His follow-up novel, Swordplay, featuring the ongoing exploits of his twin protagonists, Alexis and Jason Wolff, relies yet again on his first-hand experience of Indian society, his background as a physician, and his intimate knowledge of the martial arts, to paint an utterly realistic picture of evil at its worst and most pervasive.

After graduating at the top of his class at the Armed Forces Medical College in India with multiple honors, Ray has taught and practiced medicine in three continents. He now lives in Pittsburgh, PA, where he has worked as an academic physician and distinguished teacher for the past three decades. His lifelong interest in the history of the martial arts has given him extensive theoretical knowledge of several disciplines. Like a true academic, that knowledge is paired with virtually no practical experience in the martial arts, other than as a practice dummy for his daughters, who hold six black belts between them in three different martial arts disciplines. That woeful lack of real-world application is not evident in his vivid and realistic portrayal of combat sequences in his books, which were lauded as lifelike and authentic by no less than the sixth dan karate master who trained both his daughters. Nor does that lack deter him from fearlessly entering dark alleyways…as long as one of his daughters is with him!