[Sleuth offers] a thoroughly entertaining and highly literate twist on that old warhorse, the theatrical murder mystery, not a whodunit, but a did-he (they)-do-it. And, thanks to the playwright's often delightful deviousness and a program note enjoining audiences, not to mention critics, from disclosing the plot, it borders on the unreviewable.

The plot I am not supposed to reveal involves a highly successful mystery writer … who invites his wife's lover … to his country house for a visit. "I understand you want to marry my wife," says Andrew Wyke. "Well, yes," says Milo Tindle, travel agent-lover, "with your permission, of course." Wyke then proceeds to play games. In fact, both play games, and both become enmeshed in a witty and intricate tour de force involving a faked burglary and … I can't go on, of course, without giving away the elaborate machinations and artifice of Shaffer's very funny, very...