Blood from a Shadow

"We are in the realm of tough guys doing tough guy things against other tough guys. There is something about author Gerard Cappa's style, as well as his hero Con Maknazpy, that carries echoes of Dashiell Hammett and the Continental Op." San Francisco Book Review FROM THE BACK COVER: 2012. War weary Americans hail the endgame in Iraq and Afghanistan. But the old enemy, Iran, is more dangerous than ever. So the war on terror continues, but it must be kept in the shadows now. The Presidential machines cannot allow a mistake, there is an election to be won. Con Maknazpy is weary too, still searching for his own peace. A hero in his native New York’s famous 69th Regiment, he just wants to retreat into the shadows of the streets he knows so well. But Maknazpy is no ordinary man, he has been anointed with destiny. It’s in his blood and in the shadows of his soul. And the ghosts of the past and the future mark out that destiny, in blood. Blood that takes him to Ireland, Rome and Istanbul before he finds his own truth in the shadows of his Yonkers childhood. Maknazpy’s destiny is to be a savior, but can he save himself? ****** "Blood From A Shadow is an interesting book that attempts an new approach to the conspiracy action thriller, but even read on this surface level alone, it's written in a way that delivers thrills without insulting your intelligence. Con Maznazpy is a New York veteran of the Iraq war, still bearing the scars of his experience. He's still trying to pull his life together when he's asked to make a trip to Ireland to visit the family of his former best friend Ferdia McErlane, whose father has committed suicide apparently after a failed property deal in Turkey. Suspicious of the means by which this request is delivered, Con nonetheless returns to the old homeland only to find that there is indeed rather more to the request than was admitted, and it leads him across Europe and Asia before back to New York on the trail of much a bigger conspiracy. Cappa however hints that there is a parallel reading to be found here with the book of Irish legends featuring the mythical hero Cú Chulainn, known as the Táin. Those references aren't obvious or belabored however, the novel drawing from them in order to examine wider questions on the need for heroes - and on the attributes of bonds of loyalty to friends, to a cause or to an ideal that goes beyond consideration of duty or political gain. But it also questions whether that is even possible and whether there isn't an overriding genealogical imperative of blood at work that drives these unknowable actions. Whether it's through this literary subtext or whether it's through the strengths in the writing itself, Blood From A Shadow does have an indefinable quality and true originality, finding a way to delve into a particularly Irish sensibility that has deep historical and mythological roots in its connection with the United States, and it places an unusual spin on a conventional genre that at times gives it an almost otherworldly quality. ****** Think Jim Thompson, James M Cain, Chester Himes and Eric Ambler. Reality is warped by confusion and lies, and the hero is always the last to know.