First review and it's from none less than the saoi scríbhinne of all things nóir, Jay A Gertzman:

“There was a panic swelling in my gut and rising thick in my throat, the brutal panic when the bubble of self-deception fractures and can’t smother the shame of being who I am.”
This is Con Maknazpy, now a veteran operative, a “grunt” in the army of spies serving in the war for international power. I use this quote because it shows Gerard Cappa’s ability to get inside his narrator’s psyche in direct language he uses himself.

Cappa is a very good writer. The world into which he initiates a reader is as murky as that in which Raymond Chandler situates Marlow: “Down these mean streets a man must go, a man who is not himself mean.”
The streets in _Two Graves_ are in several continents, haunted by the corporate goals of nations which include Britain, Russia, and the U.S. Basically, this novel is a thriller with vivid scenes of people staying one step ahead of Russian torturer assassins, putting up with broken jaws and ribs, hourly beatings, near-drownings, and threats to rape and slowly kill one’s family.

If such corporate and state entities were human, they would be hopeless psychotics. It is this kind of power that is perhaps the real cause for Maknazpy’s despair.

This being true, Cappa’s novel extends hidden sympathy to the other operatives he encounters, each of which is responsible for ending many innocent lives as well as those of opponents taught to be equally impassive as themselves.

_Two Graves_ deserves to be placed on the same bookshelves, virtual and real-world, as works by Le Carre, Stuart Neville, and the Irish Renaissance writer Liam O’Flaherty.

There are two fascinatingly devilish international menaces in the book.
One, Hamilton, is based on a man who, during the Troubles, worked undercover for British military intelligence. He was responsible for the ambush of several Irish nationalists, and had been shielded by the British. Later he worked in the drug trade, and his hacking abilities have kept him one step above and beyond the assassins of three nations.
The other is the charming, three-or-four faced Monsignor Artie McCooey, essentially an Irish Republican and also a money launderer (useful to the secret banking needs of three dark state entities). And then there’s the Vatican, who have kept McCooey’s guilt secret, as the Brits have kept Hamilton from prosecution.

At the end, Maknazpy corners an enemy, on the banks of the Danube as tourists click personal postcard scenery.
The shades of fulfillment, guilt, and gravity are tightly woven into a self-judgement. “I did it cold this time, no magic trauma demon, no out-of-body immunity. . . ."

It’s only very serious crime writers who could focus in close-up on characters and their psychic essence with the kind of skill that Cappa uses.

The smartphone-clicking tourists are a great touch. Maknazpy’s previous adventures, _Black Boat Dancing_, ended in another tourist spot, East Hampton.

The average European or American, comfortable, obedient and proud. If only . . .