The Man in the Mist

"Very few of us are what we seem."

"The Man in the Mist"

This will probably be the longest novel I'll read this year, being slightly longer than Asukabe Katsunori's Massatsu Goth Gods, which I reviewed two weeks ago. 

After the events that occured in the house of the wealthy Jewish financier François Dassault in 1978, Nadia Maugars, daughter of Inspector Maugars, and Yabuki Kakeru, a Japanese student studying in Paris and amateur detective, are invited to attend a dinner at the house. Other guests include Hannah Kauffman, a political theorist whose work interests Kakeru (yes, she's based on Hannah Arendt). While Nadia and Kakeru were deeply involved in solving the triple-locked-room murder at the Dassault residence, this is the first time they meet more of the family, as most of them were not present at the time the other case occured. Among then are Veronica Laurent, François' second wife, Sophie, François' daughter of his deceased first wife and Christian Hovora, François' friend and confidential secretary. Early in the evening however, François receives a phone call, with a voice telling him his daughter Sophie has been kidnapped and demanding a great sum of money as well as The Tear of Nicole, a family heirloom jewel. However, it turns out Sophie is... all safe at home. However, it doesn't take long for them to realize that the kidnapper must have taken Sara Lerouge, the daughter of Etienne, François' chauffeur. Sara and Sophie are the same age and have grown up together as the best of friends and it turns out Sara had been wearing Sophie's clothes today. While François does inform the kidnapper of his mistake, the kidnapper still demands the money and jewel, unless they want to see Sara dead, and François immediately assures the kidnapper he will comply, as both Etienne and Sara are dear to him too. The kidnapper demands that Nadia, a guest at the party, bring the money and the jewel, packed in a bag, to a certain place in Paris by a certain time, alone of course and without contacting the police. They realize that the kidnapper must somehow have visual knowledge of the people at the dinner party, but with little time to think, Nadia accepts her mission to transport the ransom money. 

Meanwhile, her father Inspector Maugars is called to investigate the murder of the headmistress of a Catholic school: the woman was found shot through the head in her office in the early evening. While there were no classes today, the school's girls choir had to rehearse for a recital in two weeks, so the doors of the school were left open to let the girls in and out. The police is wondering how the murderer got in and out the school: while a hooded figure was seen fleeing the school just as the students had finished their rehearsals and about to leave the school too, they can't establish a proper route for the murderer to get in, especially as the route that leads into the school via the back entrance was found "locked": some doors on this route were locked with a key that was found in the headmistress' office, meaning they were locked from the "inside". But why didn't the murderer just use that key to escape via the back exit route? During his investigation however, Maugars learns of a connection to the kidnapping going on at the Dassault house, but this connection only seems to confuse things even more in Kasai Kiyoshi's 2025 novel Yoru to Kiri no Yuukai, which has the French title Nuit et brouillard enlèvement on the cover, but we'll call it A Kidnapping into Night and Fog here.

And yes, that's a reference to the Nacht und Nebel decree. 

Yoru to Kiri no Yuukai is the eighth book in the Yabuki Kakeru series, which has a rather interesting publication history. After writing the first five-or-so stories as direct-to-novel publications, Kasai Kiyoshi would be serializing the newer stories in the series, usually taking a few years for each new book as he tends to have rather lengthy books. However, that doesn't mean all those stories actually got proper collected book releases. In some cases, it'd take years after a serialization for a story to actually get a proper standalone release. Yoru to Kiri no Yuukai is one of those cases: while the book is published in 2025 (making it eligible for all kinds of "2025" rankings), the original serializaiton of the book occured back in 2010, meaning it took 15 years for the publisher to decide to actually put the story out as a book. There are more examples of that in this series, like a story that's been in serialization since 2017, and another book that's been fully serialized and finished in 2015 but still hasn't been released as its own release.

Anyway,  Yoru to Kiri no Yuukai is directly linked to Tetsugakusha no Misshitsu, the fourth book in the series and actually the first one I read. I haven't even read that much of this series, but Tetsugakusha no Misshitsu is quite well-known for its triple-locked-room setup, so if you're like me and not particular about reading things in order, it's quite likely someone will start the series with that book. Anyway, while Yoru to Kiri no Yuukai is connected to Tetsugakusha no Misshitsu and features both familiar faces as well as similar themes, I wouldn't say it's necessary to read Tetsugakusha no Misshitsu first in order to understand Yoru to Kiri no Yuukai. On the other hand, and this is a Yabuki Kakeru series staple, Kasai doesn't mind spoiling his books. There is a developing storyline in these books, in which Kakeru is after a certain person, and author Kasai has no qualms at all at spoiling previous books, like explicitly saying who the murderer was in a previous adventure. So reader, beware.

The other reader warning is of course that other Yabuki Kakeru staple: the books being used as a device to have the characters talk about philosophy, politics and history. Like in Tetsugakusha no Misshitsu, this time themes of anti-semitism, nazism, authoritarianism and the denial of the holocaust play a major role in this story. Kakeru finds a very willing discussion partner in Hannah Kaufman, with whom he talks and talks and talks in this book, and I will once again gladly reveal I'm never a big fan of these segments as I'm not as interested in the philosophical discussions like Kakeru is, whether it's on nazism this time or nuclear plants in another book. I really enjoy the mystery parts though, so when I hit another one of those lengthy philosophical discussions it makes me even more aware how I don't really enjoy them at all. The discussions also come at the weirdest moments: one occurs after Nadia returns from dropping off the ransom money/jewel and returns to the Dassault home. You'd think she has plenty to discuss with Kakeru about how the dropoff went and all of that and worrying about the fate of poor Sara as she still hasn't been returned yet, but now, we have Kakeru and Mrs. Kaufman talking about deniers of the Holocaust.

So let's talk about the mystery plot of the book, because that part I really enjoyed! We're dealing with a two-part mystery this time, one concerning a kidnapping of a girl that's gone wrong, and a "conventional" murder that occured in a school, both crimes happening around the same time. Of course, the reader can guess there's something that links these two crimes together, but fortunately, this connection is revealed relatively early on, with the rest of the mystery focusing more on the contradictions and further mysteries and questions that arise when you arrive at the realization of the connection between the two cases.

Because "solving" a kidnapping case is different from simply identifying a murderer in a murder case, kidnapping cases in puzzle plot mysteries tend to use similar ideas, often playing with the concept of "there's another crime/event going on that's being hidden via the kidnapping case" and in essence, I wouldn't say Yoru to Kiri no Yuukai provides a paradigm shift, but Kasai does manage to add some surprises the twists that seem predictable at first. The whole ransom dropoff sequence with Nadia follows familiar beats, with Nadia being given little time to go from location A to B, to C per the kidnapper's orders, but there are minor mysteries along the way for Nadia and the reader to solve. Furthermore, Kasai manages to hide some really good clues in this segment too that only become relevant further in the book. Meanwhile, the murder on the headmistresss in the school seems a conventional murder investigation, with most of the mystery revolving around who could've gained access into the school without being seen, and the mystery of why the murderer would choose to leave through the front door, instead of how they got in. This part is a bit technical and mechnical at times, with time tables about where everyone in the school was at what time and where keys were etc., but on the whole, it's a fairly solid puzzle. 

The book however becomes really interesting once the hostage is found: newly obtained evidence lead to the shocking conclusion both the kidnapping and the school murder were connected all along, but it's this very conclusion that adds confusion to the investigation: things that seemed possible and simple when the two incidents were seen as seperate events, now become impossible and unexplicable once they are connected. Kakeru in particular finds the "form" the two cases take on after their connection is discovered frustating, as he knows that if these cases are really connected, they shouldn't have ended up the way they did. I have only read four of the Yabuki Kakeru books now, but of those books, I do think this book does the best job at showing how Kakeru's interest in phenomenology is used to solve these mysteries, with him analyzing the whole event as is and then realizing it doesn't make sense. All the questions that bug Kakeru are of course answered in the end by him, but one good thing of these books is that while Kakeru always finds the final, true solution, the other recurring characters often come up with very good theories themselves. Narrator Nadia is always just barely one step behind Kakeru, and even a character like Jean-Paul, who could easily just have been the "Velie" to Inspector Maugar's Inspector Queen, is a bright detective with plenty of good suggestions. The book juggles a few false solutions in front of the reader, and while I do think it's a shame the reader can easily intuitively guess who the murderer is without going through the whole chain of clues, I do like the mystery as plotted by Kasai here, and the themes are worked well into the mystery.

So while I am still not very charmed by the long philosphical discussions in this series, I did like Yoru to Kiri no Yuukai a lot, being a mystery novel that does a good take on the trope of the kidnapping case in a murder mystery, and one that especially does a good thematic exploration into certain tropes of the mystery genre and using that exploration to set-up a great route to the truth for Kakeru. The who and how might be a bit easy to guess, but the construction of the mystery is honestly done well enough for me to not care too much about that actually. I don't know whether I'd recommend this book as one's first Yabuki Kakeru book, because you'll get spoiled on the lore of the series, regarding both small and big issues, and yet, I do have to say I think the core mystery as it is set-up, and the way we see Kakeru solve this case, would really work well as a series introduction. Perhaps in a different universe, this mystery plot would've been used for the first book.

Original Japanese title(s):  笠井潔『夜と霧の誘拐』