The second novel in the masterful tetralogy The Sea of Fertility--and a modern masterpiece (The Baltimore Sun)--narrated by a judge in Osaka who believes he has met the successive reincarnation of his childhood friend Kiyoaki Matsugae. In 1932 Shigeuki Honda has become a judge in Osaka. Convinced that a young rightist revolutionary Isao is the reincarnation of his friend Kiyoaki Honda commits himself to saving the youth from an untimely death. Isao driven to patriotic fanaticism by a father who instilled in him the ethos of the ancient samurai organizes a violent plot against the new industrialists who he believes are usurping the Emperor s rightful power and threatening the very integrity of the nation. Runaway Horses is the chronicle of a conspiracy -- a novel about the roots and nature of Japanese fanaticism in the years that led to war.