Richard Stevenson's "Chain of Fools"

Many of the reviews on Goodreads claim this is one of the poorer Donald Strachey mysteries, and it's easy to see why. Aside from the first chapter -- which is par for the course for Stevenson, and probably one of the funniest things I've read in a long, long time -- it's slow to get interesting, and a little less witty than the others that I've read, probably because the reader spends less time inside Strachey's head listening to his inner dialogue than s/he does listening to him actually converse with other people, during which conversations he has to censor his sarcastic inner cynic.

Still, the first chapter is gold, and I want to lock Dale and Timothy in a room together and watch them snipe at each other until the end of time, or at least until one of them dies. It would provide hours and hours of priceless entertainment. But since I can't lock them up like lab rats and observe them for hours at a time, quotes from the first chapter will have to do.

( You could cut my heart out, the way you did the last time, and plead temporarily asinine. )