["Sleuth"] is as clever as a wagonload of monkeys solving the crossword puzzle of The Times of London and as intricate as the Hampton Court Maze. It is good, neat, clean and bloody fun…. It is one of the most purely entertaining plays of many a season—an entrancing tale of detective-story mayhem with a touch of urbane intellectualism added for savor.

Mr. Shaffer's writing is delicious. It has a ponderous frivolity to it that sparkles like golf course sunshine on early-morning corpses. And even if you spot the twists, crinkles and decoys of Mr. Shaffer's plot (and with no undue modesty let me say I did—virtually from the very beginning of the second act) it is still enormously satisfying to have the brilliance of your deductions so satisfyingly confirmed. Mr. Shaffer is one of those rare, rare murder writers it is even a pleasure to see...