‘The Moonlighters‘ sounds like a potential composite setter…some familiar faces ‘moonlighting’ as a merry ensemble? Time, and the comments section, may tell… Either way, this is a debut puzzle, as far as I can tell…and what are ‘they’ ADVERTISING to us?…
The preamble states that:
“Fifteen clues require three consecutive characters to be removed prior to solving. Changes leave single letters or real words but may require adjustments to spacing and/or punctuation. In seven across clues, these letters provide an introduction to the individuals who should be highlighted in the completed grid (34 cells, in the form of their ADVERTISING PLOY); four others provide a source. In four down clues they show the location of the thematic representation. Chambers Dictionary (2016) is recommended.”
I found this pretty tough going – a fairly complex preamble, and it looked like a lot of clue scanning was going to be required to track down those three-letter nuggets. In addition, I was away on a camping trip on the weekend of publication, with a PDF version of the puzzle on my iPad, and then my iPencil packed in, so apart from crude finger-drawing I had no practical way of filling the grid. [Other tablets and electronic writing implements are available…]
So I did a bit of cold solving and mental noting of a few potential solutions, came home, went away again for a few days and forgot to print out a copy to take with me…and it was only on the Friday after publication that I got a replacement iPencil and was able to start concentrating on it.
Anyway, enough boring logistics and excuses – the dead iPencil ate my homework! – back to the puzzle.
It was a fairly slow grid-fill and I took a while to find enough three-letter removals to get any traction. The RED in the reversed hidden word of 8A OBESE came out quite early, as did the ARD in canards, but not a lot else. It took a fairly intensive re-work through the clues to finally tease things out and get to the first PDM, with the first five Across clues yielding:
ALF + RED + HIT + CHC + OCK
and the last four:
AUT + HOR + ART + HUR
I initially guessed the author might be Arthur Miller (although I realise he is more of a playwright than an author!), so was hoping for MIL and LER to follow somewhere. However, a little Wiki-oogling helped me find Robert Arthur Jr, who penned a series of books called ‘Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators’. The said three were Jupiter ‘Jupe’ Jones, Peter ‘Pete’ Crenshaw and Robert ‘Bob’ Andrews. And ‘AND’ and ‘THE’ made up the seven initial triples…
Finding the protagonists in the grid wasn’t too hard now that I had the material – the two Js of Jupiter Jones were hanging around the top left quadrant, and I followed JUPITER JONE around in a question mark shape, with a little jump to the S as the dot. Pete and Bob soon followed in similar fashion, and the final step was some more extra triples in the Down clues, which eventually gave BUS + INE + SSC + ARD.
A little further e-research confirms that their business card had three ?s on it, plus the slogan ‘We investigate Anything’, and their three names:
And that was just about that – an interesting theme, and an oeuvre I had never heard of. I read many a detective caper in my teenage youth in the late 70s/early 80s, but this lot slipped under my radar – they seem to be rather American-based, although they were extremely popular in Germany, for some reason…
My thanks to ‘The Moonlighters’, whoever you may be, for an educational challenge and fun solve. A fine piece of grid construction, and a nice touch that the extra triples were grouped together, rather than randomly distributed.
I trust all is clear below…
| Across | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Clue No | Removed Letters | Solution | Clue (definition underlined, removed letters in bold)
Logic/Parsing |
|
| 1 | ALF | SQUAD CAR | Jam sandwich and off-roader in crash, not half bad (8, 2 words)
S_CAR (anag, i.e. bad, of CRAS( [jam sandwich being 1970s(?) slang for a police car, white top and bottom with a red stripe down the middle!] |
|
| 8 | RED | OBESE | Returned geese bred organically, contains too much fat? (5)
reversed, hidden word, i.e. returned and contains, in ‘geESE B( |
|
| 12 | HIT | RUPIAH | Running whitest fibre around rising dough in Jakarta (6)
R_IAH (hair, or fibre, running w( [dough as in money!] |
|
| 13 | CHC | DELETES | Cancels tech cover charging Leeds complex (7)
DEL_ES (anag, i.e. complex, of LEEDS) around (charged by) ET (TE( |
|
| 15 | OCK | ETUDE | Tune inside of rockets, due for tweaking (5)
ET (insode of ‘r( |
|
| 17 | AND | ARIDER | Jockey landed by area that’s less damp (6)
RIDER (jockey) l( |
|
| 19 | THE | DEBLUR | Improve focus of the French band (6)
DE (of, French) + BLUR (popular beat combo, m’lud) |
|
| 21 | LEER | Ogle older earl on a regular basis (4)
regular letters from ‘oLdEr EaRl’ |
||
| 22 | SLOBS | Dirty animals beginning to sniff balls (5)
S (beginning to sniff) + LOBS (balls, shots in e.g. tennis or cricket) [an unpleasant image!] |
||
| 23 | ODDJOB | Henchman‘s atypical task (6)
ODD (atypical) + JOB (task) [Oddjob being a henchman of a Bond villain] |
||
| 26 | DIAXONS | Two-way transmitters misrepresented 0 and 6 (7)
anag, i.e. misrepresented, of O (0) + AND + SIX! [diaxons being nerve cells/transmitters] |
||
| 27 | PROUD | Outstanding dessert keeps men coming back (5)
P_UD (pudding, dessert) around (keeping) RO (OR, Other Ranks, soldiers or men, coming back) |
||
| 30 | AIR | Delivered toon’s broadcast (3)
homophone, i.e. delivered – in some accents/dialects a TOON and mean a TUNE, or AIR |
||
| 31 | NESTS | Houses found in Tyneside streets? (5)
NE (North East, e.g. Tyneside) + STS (st, street, plural) |
||
| 32 | PENNERS | What held writing implements for wardens? (7)
double defn. – a PENNER is archaic for a pen case; and a PENNER might keep someone in a pen, or jail, like a warden |
||
| 33 | DASHER | This show-off at work may make her sad! (6)
anag, i.e. may make, of HER SAD |
||
| 35 | TETRA | Try to release Sun God’s fish (5)
TE( |
||
| 38 | MANO | Chiefs of music awards nominated obnoxious Rolling Stone (4)
first, or chief, letters of ‘Music Awards Nominated Obnoxious’ [a Mexican stone for grinding maize] |
||
| 40 | EARBOB | Perhaps stud‘s to finally run off with babe (6)
anag, i.e. off, of O (final letter of tO) + R (run) + BABE |
||
| 41 | ARISTA | Rats! Al cryptically clues bristle on antenna (6)
anag, i.e. cryptically, of RATS AI |
||
| 43 | OWNED | Made admission that stung Edward (5)
OW (that hurt!) + NED (contraction of Edward) |
||
| 45 | AUT | PIANINO | Instrument sorted pain? Not after a UTI (7)
PIAN (anag, i.e. sorted, of PAIN) + I (( |
|
| 46 | HOR | ADMIRE | Have a high opinion of short-range sidearm but it lacks sight at the front (6)
anag, i.e. s( |
|
| 47 | ART | HAYDN | At first, Del nicked Barty dried grass for one driven to score (5)
HAY (dried grass) b( |
|
| 48 | HUR | ESSEXMAN | Letter primarily sent to old fellah urgent? Reportedly not (8)
ES (phonetic representation of S, letter) + S (primary letter of Sent) + EX-MAN (former fella( [an Essex Man (6,3?) might reportedly not be a ( |
|
| Clue No | Removed Letters | Solution | Clue (definition underlined, removed letters in bold)
Logic/Parsing |
|
| 2 | QUIRED | Question one. What colour is used for marking folded paper? (6)
QU (question) + I (one) + RED (red pen, colour used for marking schoolwork) |
||
| 3 | UPTIE | Conclude part of forfeit – pupil’s upset (5)
reversed, hidden word, i.e. part of and upset, in ‘forfEIT PUpil’s’ |
||
| 4 | DATES | Fruit stocked by Tesco after Asda? (5)
hidden word in, i.e. stocked by(!), ‘asDA TESco’ (TESCO after ASDA) |
||
| 5 | CHURL | Meanie‘s church address (5)
CH (church) + URL (internet address) |
||
| 6 | ADD | Total bill split with date (3)
A_D (ad, advert, bill) around (split by) D (date) |
||
| 7 | REEDBIRD | Flyer‘s two pens? (8)
a REED can be a type of pen; and BIRD is slang for prison, or a pen, so two pens! |
||
| 8 | OLPES | Aphrodite’s jugs capturing Greek’s heart in old records (5)
O (old) + LP_S (long playing records) around E (heart, or middle letter, of grEek) |
||
| 9 | BEMBIXES | Red bees mix with black wasps (8)
anag, i.e. red (set things in order), of BEES MIX + B (black) |
||
| 10 | ETA | Finally write thank you letter (3)
E (final letter of writE) + TA (thank-you!) |
||
| 11 | SEQUENT | Following group smuggling monarch outside of Spain (7)
SE_T (group) around (smuggling) QUE( |
||
| 14 | BUS | JALOPPIES | Pupils abuse Jo, not initially using iffy bangers (9)
subtractive anagram, i.e. iffy, of P(U)PILS A(BUS)E JO, without the first U (initial letter of Using) [jaloppy being a variation of jalopy] |
|
| 16 | INE | CROSSROAD | Here you make a choice and dine out with Cora and Ross (9)
anag, i.e. out, of D( |
|
| 18 | SSC | MODISTE | Perhaps Dior’s dapper teen tries dancing with King‘s scout (7)
MOD (rebellious teen) + ISTE (anag, i.e. dancing, of TRIES with R, rex, out, King( |
|
| 20 | ARD | LOOS | Opener for England dodges vague canards (4)
LOOS( |
|
| 24 | JUNKBOND | Bound to lose focus after a month with King offering risky security (8)
JUN (June, a month) + K (king, chess or cards notation) + BO( |
||
| 25 | BAREBONE | Will’s rake, made of basic ebony that’s mostly recycled (8)
BARE (basic) + BONE (anag, i.e. recycled, of most of EBON( [barebone, Shakespearean for skinny, as a rake] |
||
| 28 | REGALIA | Cigar‘s fancy wrappings (7)
double defn. – a REGALIA is a type of large cigar; and REGALIA are fancy wrappings or clothes/insignia, usually ceremonial) |
||
| 29 | ONER | Working energy source for robotics expert 4)
ON (working) + E (energy) + R (first letter, or source, of Robotics) |
||
| 34 | ENTERA | Where Jenn’s innards take in meal? (6)
&lit-ish? EN (innards of jENn) + TE_A (meal) around R (recipe, Latin, ‘take…’) [entera being the guts, or intestines!] |
||
| 35 | TOE-IN | Leading convergence for a German (5)
TO (for) + EIN (a, German) [toe-in being slight convergence of car tyres to improve steering and tyre wear] |
||
| 36 | RANAS | Princes gossip amidst royal society (5)
R_S (Royal Society) around ANA (gossip, small talk, anecdotes) |
||
| 37 | AREDE | Declare historical aspect of warfare defunct (5)
hidden word in, i.e. aspect of, ‘warfARE DEfunct’ |
||
| 39 | ASWIM | When weak writer’s lost at sea (5)
AS (when) + W (weak, physics) + IM (I’m, the writer is) [aswim being archaic, or lost, for afloat, at sea…rather than the floater being lost at sea!] |
||
| 42 | SAY | Articulate section cleared out army (3)
S (section) + AY (ArmY, cleared out) |
||
| 44 | WOS | Past trouble with rings (3)
W (with) + OS (o, ring, plural) [wo being an older, or past, variant of woe, trouble] |
||