This was one of the most enjoyable books I've read for a while. Longer than Curious Dog, meatier than Clerkenwell Tales, quicker than Persian Boy, not guiltily lowbrow like Queen's Fool or inexplicably highbrow like Portnoy's Complaint. Art history and iconography reminiscent of The Cornish Trilogy and Possession set in a lighthearted English country farce. I think a DU friend recommended this Michael Frayn years ago, and hey! it has legs on the cover but they're not female ones in stiletto pumps.
Also I began and discarded after just a few pages Douglas Coupland's Eleanor Rigby. I still mean to read J-Pod but this morning I was not in the mood for a miserable female 30something protagonist browbeaten by her mother. So I just stopped. That's big for me. I started Arther and George. I liked The Final Solution with very little Sherlock Holmes under my belt but even primed by Curious Incident I am not sure it will grab me. But it feels worth more pages of effort than the Coupland did.