The Big Four

"From the ashes of this world I will build a better one. Go forth, my horsemen and let chaos cleanse the world."

"X-Men The Animated Series"

Hmm, funny how a lot of the reviews posted this winter are set in the summer...

After a murder case that involved her own friends, Nadia Maugars, daughter of Inspector Maugars, still doesn't know quite how to move on, especially as in contrast, Yabuki Kakeru, a Japanese student who studies philosophy in Paris who tutors her in Japanese, seems eerily cold and untouched by the incident. Kakeru is in fact far more interested in Nadia's friendship with Giselle Rochefort, daughter of August Rochefort, one of the major names in the financial world of southern France. Giselle is studying history under the tutelage of Charles Sylvain: Kakeru wants to view certain documents involving the Cathars, which Charles can provide him. Kakeru and Nadia learn Giselle will be staying at her father's holiday home in the south of France this insanely hot summer, as her father is trying to get a nuclear power plant in that region. Charles will also be there due to an excavation where they expect to find objects related to the Cathars, and others are also expected to be there, like Giselle's boyfriend Julian, a nuclear researcher connected to the Rochefort nuclear plant, and his sister Simone, a teacher and activist. Kakeru and Nadia also travel to the same village, as Jean-Paul Barbes, a subordinate of Nadia's father, hails from there. Everyone is hanging around the holiday home of the Rocheforts, when a loud crash surprises everyone. They gather in front of the second floor room where the noise came from, which they find locked from the inside. Kakeru enters the room via the garden and outside balcony, and inside they find the murdered body of Fest, a visiting antiquarian. For some reason, Fest was knocked out on the head and then an arrow was stabbed in his chest, with the bow and arrow being part of the room's decoration. When Kakeru finds Fest had first been knocked out with an object with one of the biblical Johns on it, and he also later learns a white horse belonging to the Rocheforts was killed too at the same time, he realizes what is going on: this murder was styled after the Book of Revelation: the segment regarding the first horseman of the Apocalypse says: "A white horse appears, whose crowned rider has a bow with which to conquer." But that begs the question: does this mean three other people will be murdered too, and why commit a murder like this? Meanwhile, Kakeru has more things to think of, as an attempt on his life has been made due to his interference in the previous incident. Can he solve all of these problems in Kasai Kiyoshi's Summer Apocalypse (1981)?

The first novel by mystery author, critic and philosopher Kasai featuring Yabuki Kakeru I read was back in 2015, but after reading Tetsugakusha no Misshitsu ("A Locked Room for Philosophers", 1992), it took me about ten years to return to that series with Oedipus Shoukougun ("Oedipus Syndrome", 2002), which I read last year. Perhaps it's therefore surprising I'm reading another entry in this series so soon, but what shouldn't surprise frequent readers is that I once again read the series completely out of order. After reading the fourth and then the fifth novel, I decided to go back to the second novel: Summer Apocalypse. To be completely honest, the Yabuki Kakeru is really not the best series to read out of order: Kasai really likes to start each new book with a recap of the events of the previous book and he doesn't mind spoiling major events, including the identity of the murderers, in these prologues. That holds even for this second book, which freely spoils the identity of the murderer of the first book (Bye Bye Angel), which I haven't read yet. The prologue also builds directly on the ending of the previous book, with shocking incidents happening to Nadia and Kakeru due to what happened in Bye Bye Angel. This storyline is also of importance later in the book, as Kakeru remains invested in the aftermath of what happened in the first book throughout his investigations in this second book. Why did I start with this book then, you might ask. Well, I wasn't really planning to read "a Yabuki Kakeru" novel when this book found its way on my reading pile to be honest. I had in fact been looking for mystery fiction themed after the Book of Revelation and the Apocalypse, and this book was one that was mentioned a lot in Japanese sources (in the past, I also reviewed the manga Father Sakura which had a story involving the Apocalypse too).

My previous experience with this series already taught me Kasai likes to write long novels, and that likes to use them as vehicles to talk about philosophy, history and other topics that might interest him, and to be honest, I have often felt he went too far with that for my taste, having to wade through pages of characters discussing philosophy while they're in imminent danger of being murdered. Fortunately for me (your mileage may vary), this book is a bit shorter than the previous two novels I read, and therefore it stays a bit more focused on the core mystery plot, though there's still plenty of talk about Catharism and the characters' stances regarding art, nuclear plants and more of that. Ironically, the one thing I did hope he'd write more extensively about, that being the Book of Revelation and the meaning of the Apocalypse, is surprisingly less of an important theme, and while they of course do discuss the topic over the course, I do have to say I was a bit disappointed it never went as deep as I hoped it'd go: I'd loved to have read more about the historical background or for example interpretations of the Book of Revelation.

Nonetheless, a mystery novel about a series of murders modelled after the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse is of course an exciting idea: each time a murder is commited, a victim is killed with an object invoking the respective horseman, and you might want to avoid this book if you love horses, because yep, horses are also murdered each time. Many of the murders have slightly impossible aspects to them too, at least, if you assume the murderer is someone in the main cast of characters, as each time, all or at least most of them seem to have fairly good alibis for the murders. For the first murder for example, most characters arrive in front of the room very soon after they hear the noise made by the murderer, making it unlikely any of them had been inside the room seconds ago: with the door locked from inside, the murderer would have needed to take the long way around via the balcony and the garden to get back inside. To be honest, I was not a big fan of the solution to this quasi locked room: the solution is one of the type that can work in some situations, but here I think the hinting to the existence of such a thing seemed a bit too weak, though I do like how it tied to the horseman imagery. In fact, I think the manner in which Kasai integrated the Horseman themes into the mystery is the most interesting part: they fit very well with the motive of the mastermind behind these murders and the props indicated in each of the verses are used in interesting manners to faciliate said murders. Obviously, 'dressing up' each murder to correspond with the Horseman verses is partially done to act as misdirection, and I think that is executed really well here, but Kasai does go beyond just using it as misdirection, giving a proper thematical (character driven) reason to have these murders indicate the end of times.

What I also liked about Summer Apocalypse is that Kasai has more surprises beyond the allusions to the Apocalypse: the way the murders are ultimately explained is done in a rather surprising way, and while at first you might be wondering why it is done in this particular way, it all does come together in the end, and mystery-wise, I think this was an interesting approach by Kasai. I can't talk too much about this unfortunately, but it's a theme I generally do like in mystery novels, and while you see it relatively often nowadays, it would have been far less common in 1981, and in that sense, Summer Apocalypse still feels very modern despite it predating shin honkaku novels.

While Summer Apocalypse didn't go as deep in the topic of the Apocalypse and the Four Horsemen as I had initially hoped, I still think this is a fine example of a mitate (themed) murder mystery: murders committed in a way to allude to the Book of Revelation is just a really exciting theme, and Kasai manages to use the theme in a very clever way that is also deeply connected to what moves the characters in this novel. While I wasn't a fan of all the individual murders, the Apocalypse glue did make this a fun mystery to read, and in terms of the mystery plot, page count and Kasai talking about philosophy and other topics, this was definitely the one book that managed to feel like it balanced these elements the best, at least, it fitted my own personal preference much better than for example Oedipus Shoukougun, which felt much slower and meandering. At this point, it is likely I will also read Bye Bye Angel one day, but beyond that, I feel like I'm not really reading these books because I am invested in the story and characters of this series, and I'll probably just return to it if one of the books happen to be about a theme I want to read about, rather than me wanting to read a Yabuki Kakeru novel.

Original Japanese title(s): 笠井潔『サマー・アポカリプス』