"Lafcadio's Adventures" is the English title usually given to Les Caves du Vatican, a 1914 black comedy novel by French author Andre Gide. The story consists of five interlocking stories about a group of related nobles, caught up in a scam. The titular character of the English translation, Lafcadio Wluiki (his last name is pronounced "Loki", which might be on purpose) is as close as the book comes to a main character.
The first section of the book tells the story of Anthine Armand-Dubois, an atheistic scientist and Freemason who converts to Catholicism. The book then switches to tell the story of Anthine's brother-in-law, Julius de Baraglioul, and how he discovers that a nineteen year old man, Lafcadio, is actually his dying father's illegitimate son, who will get a part of the inheritance. The action then switches once again, to reveal the central plot of the book: a group of swindlers, led by Lafcadio's old friend Protus (but unknown to Lafcadio) is swindling wealthy Catholics by telling them that the pope has been kidnapped and replaced by an imposter, and secret donations have to be given to raise an army to free the pope. Although this is supposed to be secret, the word gets around (and to be honest, I lost track of who exactly was an in-law and in-law of an in-law in this story), and one of them (named Amedee Fleurissoire) dispatches himself to Rome, to save the pope. Along the way, during a train trip, he meets the newly-wealthy Lafcadio, who on impulse, murderes Amedee off the train, not knowing he is distantly related to him.
All of this sounds pretty convoluted and melodramatic, doesn't it? I admit that while I had a bit of trouble understanding who was related to who, the tone of the story was perfect---it seems a little far-fetched to believe that an entire family of wealthy, functional people would be taken in by such a scam, but the reaction of functional people in recent years to conspiracy theories certainly makes the entire thing more plausible. The actions of the swindlers, and the reaction of their victims, is right on the edge between plausible and exaggerated, and that is what made it so funny. Later on, however, when Lafcadio, a young man who has been shown to be capricious but not violent, decides to impulsively murder a man, it seems to not be in keeping with the rest of the book's tone. What had been a somewhat lighthearted description of cynicism and gullibility becomes rather overwrought.
Part of what is going on here is I can't tell how self-aware the author was. (Especially exacerbated by the author being French, a language that has no concept of irony). Was Andre Gide attempting to point out how cruel and empty a young man with inherited money could be, or was he advocating for the concept of random murder as being a sign of being some type of overman who has transcended "conventional morality"? Was his mocking of the French aristocracy (and I have no idea just how rich these people are) because he thought they were too ensconced in conventional values, or because he thought they had become depraved? I enjoyed this book, but whether I can really like it depends on me being able to tell whether Andre Gide was an edgelord or not.