I would only read Irish books when I was younger - James Stephens, Flann O'Brien, Michael McLaverty, the Blasket books. Or else politics, history, philosophy.I must have lightened up a bit later on, that's when I started reading about murder as entertainment. The classics, of course, Hammett, Chandler, Cain, Himes, Parker, Macdonald, Jim Thompson. Then Ellroy, Mosley, Burke, Rankin, then all the Scandanavians (the Icelander Indridason is the best).Started to match books to the places I travelled to -Orhan Pamuk in Turkey, Camilleri in Italy, Montalban in Spain, Mercier in Portugal (originally in German).I started to write Blood from a Shadow as a standard thriller, no big messages. Then I realised I couldn't help it, all that stuff about being an underdog, free will limited by inherited cultural baggage and everyone's basic human right to be treated with dignity, it all had to come out.Nobody else will notice, but at least it has worked for me. That's all any writer can hope for.I started writing Black Boat Dancing in 2012. I settled on two main hinges, real events - 1) a $40m cyber theft 2) the act of cyber-espionage revealed when the Flame malware was exposed.As 2013 progressed, real life facts overtook my fiction; civil war in Syria, ongoing attacks against Russia from jihadist and other groups in the southern Caucasus regions of Chechnya, Dagestan, Ingushetia, Ossetia, the Boston Marathon bombing linked to Dagestan, fears of attacks at the Sochi Winter Olympics, and then the overthrow of the government in Ukraine and the ensuing conflict in the largely Russian speaking regions of Ukraine.The underlying Geopolitical framework of Black Boat Dancing (the Great Game between USA, Russia and China) seemed, initially, to be a fanciful conspiracy theory. As 2013 turned into 2014, my fiction seemed tame compared to the daily news headlines.My task, as I saw it, was to write a diverting entertainment. All the same, I can't help but wonder how much stranger than fiction fact can be.In July 2013, 'Blood from a Shadow' was selected as the first 'Summer Page Turner' by The Wild Geese, the Irish-American social network based in New York.Here is the Q&A as posted on the Wild Geese site www.thenewwildgeese.comWG - Tell us about "Blood From a Shadow," Gerry. What is the book about? GC - I hope readers can be entertained by 'Blood from a Shadow' as a straightforward thriller, first of all. Against the backdrop of increasing tensions between the USA, Iran and Israel fomented by the Iranian nuclear project, Maknazpy, a Yonkers veteran of the 69th NY Regiment, is lured into a plot to strike another 9/11 on New York. Maknazpy is manipulated by hidden puppet-masters on opposing sides, and his conventional blue collar worldview based on the bonds of duty and loyalty to family, friends and flag are tested and challenged.His journey takes him from NY to Ireland, Rome and Istanbul in search of the truth before the final showdown in the Shawangunk Ridge of Ulster County, upstate NY.There is another layer, however, for those with the inclination to search for it. Just as Maknazpy blindly wades through the fog and mirrors of contemporary intrigue and deception (a world he did not create but must struggle to understand and survive), his journey also traces the footsteps of past heroes of Irish history and mythology (again, a world Maknazpy has not created but has inherited).Therein lies the dilemma of Maknazpy, or any hero, past or present, real or mythologized.On the one hand, he is 'heroic'; and by culture and tradition our heroes are expected to be the ultimate alpha-males - with the capacity to deliver all-conquering violence on the opposition, to assert 'Right' through 'Might', with victory in combat the final benediction. On the other hand, the 'hero' must operate in two worlds. One is the real, here-and-now of intrigue and falsehoods, with tangible danger and enemies to exploit any weakness. The other is the world we have received, and created by generations before us, which consists of assumptions and attitudes, expectations and accepted behaviors.The Irish proverb says "Ar scáth a chéile a mhaireann na daoine" - we live in each others shadows. This is an observation that we depend on each other, and should therefore be benevolent and supportive of other people.It could also mean that none of us are the autonomous individualists as idealized by modern western culture - the free thinking independent, responsible only to our individual conscience which we have each created in isolation.Maknazpy's dilemma is not only that the shadows of others have created the real world that he is now a pawn in, but also that the shadow in his blood (the inherited genetic and cultural baggage he has received) demands he behaves in an almost predetermined way.Indeed, the concept of 'heroic' is at the heart of both of Maknazpy's journeys .There are echoes of Cúchulainn, the warrior-hero of the great Irish epic The Cattle Raid of Cooley, in Maknazpy's own instinctive response to danger and threat. The episodes of exaggerated violence in Blood from a Shadow mirror the savagery which was the very quality which made Cúchulainn a hero; and which was, and is, the common feature among heroes from the ancient Greeks to more modern battle grounds. And if Maknazpy reacts to the here-and-now as a latter day Cúchulainn, he also retraces the steps of another Irish hero:- Aodh Mór Ó Neill, Hugh The Great O'Neill, who led the last great struggle of the Irish Gaelic world against English domination until the Nine Years War ended in defeat and the Flight of the Earls.Maknazpy is unaware of O'Neill, and of all the Wild Geese that followed, but his journey through the Armagh battle fields of the Yellow Ford and onward to the Rome that received Aodh Mór in exile is reflective of the journey we all make - in the footsteps of our forebears who have moulded and shaped our perceptions of the world, despite the modern fashion for belief in only that which you can touch and see.There are other markers of history and the received human condition as well.Other characters in the story bear the names of a host of traitors, turncoats and conspirators from Irish history. Others carry the names of poets and scholars who contributed to the long line of learned figures who earned Ireland's title as a 'Land of Saints and Scholars'.Unfortunately for Maknazpy, it is the host of traitors and conspirators that set out to lead him astray.Watch out for characters named from traitors and informers from the Williamite Wars, the 1798 Rebellion, and the War of Independence.Of course, I didn't have to go so far back in history to resurrect these folk memories of the warrior-hero and of traitors to the cause. I was born in Lisburn, Co Antrim in 1959, and was therefore 10 years old when the Troubles restarted in 1969 in the north of Ireland. 'Blood from a Shadow' is by no means a 'Troubles' book, nor is it an attempt by me to rationalize or give my version of who were the heroes and who the traitors. For one thing, I don't feel entitled to bend my characters to suit that purpose. For another, I must confess to feeling an unease, even a slight antagonism, when I read some other books that handle the subject badly, or lazily: too many lives were damaged, too many survivors still hurt, to excuse the comic book narratives that exploit their suffering and do justice to no-one.Like every other 10 year old, I learnt to live a life we thought was normal, even if that normality was a heady fusion of the shadow cast by warrior-heroes, the baggage of competing cultural realities and our collective premonition that it would get worse before it would get better.Anyway, forty something years later, and it is better. Not perfect, maybe a work in progress, but better, and good enough to permit me to delve into some of those notions of free will, predetermination and the influence of our hand me down attitudes. Of course, it isn't only the Irish who receive cultural certainties, and I hope 'Blood from a Shadow' creaks open the lid to shed a little doubt on the self-confirming shibboleths that turn slogans into war cries across the east/west divide.So, I hope there are enough diverting hints and motifs in the story to amuse the patient reader who has the time and inclination to look for this 'other world' I sought to suggest. The big idea was that none of these characters were performing in a vacuum, and that the cycles of history had already set the scene for their stories and mindsets, so the 'free will' idea is compromised somehow. That's a couple of things we have going for us in Ireland - cycles of history and cycles of stories - and sometimes they even coalesce. I suppose I was trying to say something about the concept of the hero figure and about how that doesn't always sit easy with our idea of the civilized, sophisticated modern world; but, then again, maybe we can only hold our modern society together on the premise that we are more civilized and sophisticated than the ones who went before us. Anyway, if that sounds like a load of pretentious rubbish, I'll be happy if people can just pass some time reading it as an entertaining thriller.WG - When did you begin writing, and what inspired you?GC - In retrospect, I think I must have been collecting little images in my head for some time before I actually started to write the book last year. For example, I've walked the ground that the Great O'Neill walked, at The O'Neill inauguration site at Tulaigh Óg (Tullahoge) , the Hill of the Youth/Young Warriors, and along the route he must have travelled when planning the Battle of the Yellow Ford in 1598, from the Cathedral City of Armagh towards the Blackwater River. Then in Rome, I visited his resting place at St Pietro in Montorio, and had a glass of wine one night in the garden of the Palazzo he lived in while in Rome.Maknazpy also finds himself in the Basilica di Santa Croce in Florence. I spent a pleasant hour or two there one day, meandering around the funeral monuments to Michelangelo, Machiavelli, Dante, Marconi, Fermini, Rossini, Raffaello, Gentile and Galileo.Maknazpy starts to unravel the puzzle when he is in Istanbul, and I walked the streets and imbibed the electric atmosphere of that bustling, energetic city.All of those things, the seemingly inconsequential fleeting moment or image, the atmosphere (received and projected), faces and voices seen or heard in real life, or maybe in movies, or other people's stories, they all combine to create the feeling or emotion I was trying to convey. WG - You envision this as part of a series -- tell us about the next book in the series. When will it be available? Will it feature the same protagonists and 'bad guys'?GC -I see it as a trilogy. This first part, 'Blood from a Shadow', deals largely with external factors that contrive to confuse and impose their influence on Maknazpy (historical & cultural baggage, expectations from family, community, society at large), so that his attempts to isolate himself from all that he knows is compromised . The second in the series, untitled as yet, will explore Maknazpy's internal conflict to a greater extent. The thriller aspect of it is set against the backdrop of a Chinese/USA struggle through cyber-espionage and the stealing and manipulation of personal, financial and corporate data. The subtext will give Maknazpy the opportunity to explore and be challenged about what it is that constructs an individual's identity- in terms of self-realization and in terms of how others shape who we are by their perception and categorization of us.As of early June, 2013, I am about two thirds finished, and hope to have it complete later this year, possibly around Hallow'een (if I'm lucky).The third part will bring it all together. The blood from a shadow is the combination of genetic, familial, cultural and societal factors and norms that are dealt to each of us. In Maknazpy's case, he may have a genetically inherited condition of the brain (affecting the chemical balance and hard wiring of his amygdala so that the normal functions of modulating aggression and triggering situation appropriate fear responses are curtailed). It may be that this rare condition has been present in some of those warrior-heroes of historical note, and that Maknazpy comes to recognize this warrior gene as a chemical imbalance of the brain. To trace the source of this genetic abnormality, Maknazpy will seek out his mysterious father, who has been physically absent for all of Maknazpy's adult life but who has been a shadow figure always present during the first two books. WG - What was your experience living in Belfast during The Troubles, and how did that affect your narrative?GC - My experience was much like most people's. That was our life, that was normal. I only realize how abnormal it was now when I can see how different things are for my own two sons. The elder is 20 years old now, and was a baby in my arms when the Ceasefire of 1994 was announced. Especially as a teenager, and as a young man, I experienced many scrapes and near misses, like everybody else. I suspect that this subtext in Blood from a Shadow (about the hero-warrior being out of step with civilized society, and characters being driven by received circumstance, nothing happening in a vacuum) is really the Troubles coming out in my writing.At the same time, I am sensitive of the imperative to keep my writing honest. Many people suffered a lot more than I did in the Troubles, and I don't welcome many of those 'Troubles' books that became popular. Too many stereotypes, clichés, 'love across the barricade', one good man (the hero-warrior?) defending us all from the sadistic, evil 'terrorists'. Too often from middle class scribes (often good writers) easily laying down the middle class maxim that absolves their class from any responsibility, that says 'If only they were all Middle Class there would be no Troubles'. As if sectarian self interest wasn't embedded in the very structure of the 'State', including all the avenues to economic and cultural power that created and sustained their class over the generations.So, I'd have to say the Troubles affected my narrative in ways that I haven't quite managed to articulate to myself yet, but I suspect somebody else will volunteer to do that for me!WG - Who inspires your writing?GC - I don't think I can say any particular person, but instead it would be people. Ordinary people, going about their business, getting by, without letting their human spirit be crushed and throttled by the pressures of modern living.Certainly the under-dog, in any given situation. Probably a northern Irish Catholic trait, but my affinity is with the subjugated, the oppressed, the disadvantaged. Now, those are the people who have least stake in any society, and may be the ones who are more likely to fall foul of authority, in many of its different forms, but I often feel more comfortable with them than with the materialist, spiritually corrupt 'betters' of this world.That being the case, I hope I do some justice to the disadvantaged I draft in as players in Blood from a Shadow; the Kurdish prostitute and Gypsy petty thief in Istanbul, the Belfast boy exiled to New York for his own safety, the little girl in Iraq - I hope I invested enough humanity in each of them so that they became more than the prejudiced labels that the powerless are often reduced to in books of this sort.Music is also a good trigger for me, and the characters in Blood from a Shadow are often subjected to whatever I happen to be llistening to at the time. Maybe a 1928 recording of John McKenna (I had him playing the Maid of Mount Kisco on an old Audio Disc recorded in a Bronx Firehouse in one scene), or Count John McCormick singing Una Furtiva Lagrima when a bit of sentiment was required. A young girl from Riverside sings 'A Stor Mo Chroí' on the Fordham radio station, the Art McCooey priest character plays Cohen's 'Hallelujah' on his car radio, and a gaggled of military re-enactors fife and drum 'Garryowen' at the 150th anniversary of Marye's Heights.One character is a veteran of the Abraham Lincoln unit of the xvth International Brigade of the Republican army during the Spanish Civil War. He came to life while I was listening to Christy Moore sing 'Viva la Quinta Brigada'.Imelda May sings 'Mayhem' and Kay Starr sings 'Wheel of Fortune' on the jukebox in Rudy's Bar in Hel's Kitchen. There are other snippets of music too, most of which were on my iPod playlist at the time.WG - Who were your writing mentors?GC - I enjoy the writing process as an individual struggle - me and the story.I don't have any mentors, per se, but I do get encouragement when I need it from people like John Gaynard, the Mayo author who writes his Timothy O'Mahoney stories in Paris, and John L Murphy, the redoubtable 'Blogtrotter', the unrepentant but not unskeptical Fenian out of L.A. California.One of the benefits of waiting until late in life before committing to writing myself is that I have had the opportunity to read and enjoy many great writers without taking on board the pressure to follow a hero.When I was young, up until about late twenties, I would only read Irish writers or Irish related books. Flann O'Brien was an early favourite, of course. I think his books were re-published when I was about 15 or 16, so that was the ideal age to get my hands on them. There were others, like James Stephens and northern writers like Michael Mac Laverty and WR Rodgers, but O'Brien was my favorite.I read a lot of books translated from Irish, too; 'The Hard Road to Klondyke' by Mici Mac Gabhainn (a reference in Blood from a Shadow, by the way), The Road to Bright City , short stories by Máirtín Ó Cadhain, Dialann Deoraí by Donall Mac AmhlaighAn t-Oileanach by Tomás O Crohan was a big favourite, and the other Blasket Island books. Later on I started to read the American noir classics; Hammett and Chandler, but James M. Cain, with his Irish background, and, especially, Jim Thompson were my favorites.Of the more modern American writers I like James Ellroy, Walter Mosley and Scott Philips (The Ice Harvest may be the best of them all). Rankin's Edinburgh Rebus, Mankell's Swedish Wallander, the Icelandic crime of Arnaldur Indriðason, and the Eberhard Mock series from Krajewski are all great reads.Not that I am totally pre-occupied with crime stories. I like to graze around philosophy and (not too difficult) science, and will always find time for a John Banville or Neil Jordan book.WG - When you hit the proverbial writer's block, where do you go or what do you do to get the words flowing again?I take a break, sometimes for a few days. So far, I've been lucky enough to hit on a solution to a plot twist or a character trait when I'm least expecting it, maybe digging in the garden, or driving or listening to music.I think these reviewers catch what I was trying to do"He aims at a diverse readership. One that demands a page-turning violent saga, and another that savors a more polished gloss.There's an astonishing amount of references--on cultural, political and what's intriguingly a personal level for the author--packed into its pages. I found this considerably denser in its telling than the genre typically presents, once I noticed character names and places. This intertextuality may overwhelm some readers but entice others, as such dogged, clever, "Easter Egg" construction tends to do. A love of the Irish form of excessive delight in the detail and ramble helps." Dr John L Muphy -Prof of Humanities, L.A. (Amazon top 500 reviewer)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.Keris Nine, Amazon Top 500 Reviewer USA "But Cappa does not present Con solely as a mindless Rambo figure. Although limited by the cultural boundaries of his upbringing, Con is an observer who becomes keenly aware of the individuals, men, women and children he sees in Iraq and Turkey and realizes that the people who have been misrepresented to him as primitive and violent are, in many ways, equal or superior to the ones he comes from, which have been waging terrible warfare and attempted genocide on the rest of the world since the beginning of the modern era. So, on another level, this book can be read as a scathing indictment of what Northern Irish bigotry, American redneck patriotism, the billions of Western dollars invested in weapons and men of mass destruction, what Eisenhower described as the "military-industrial complex", and the wish to transform the rest of the world into fawning clones of Western democracy can do to their own trusting children: make monsters of them.In this novel, Con begins to doubt the ideology that formed him: he cannot ignore the finer points of the people and cultures he has been trained to destroy. That is what makes Blood from a Shadow even more than an action thriller."John J Gaynard, author of 'Green Blood is for France'"It's a tribute to the author's abilities that his book can demolish both its hero's illusions and its readers' expectations (psychological, national or parental) without ever seeming contrived, manipulative or politically correct. The story also displays a commendable ruthlessness: unlike many thrillers, this one treats the death of innocents as considerably more than a plot motor, and we are never allowed to forget that being injured hurts (Con is tough, but he never degenerates into a superhero) and that redemption comes at a price."Phillip Challinor, author of 'Providence Fell' and 'The Voivode'