HolyGhost

Back in spring, Augeas’s first puzzle for the Listener was published, and now, before summer (?) is over, Augeas appears for the first time with an Inquisitor puzzle.  Some highlighting is to be … Read more >>

I have to say, this was a masterful offering from Schadenfreude, an old friend of the Inquisitor, and invariably ‘firm but fair’ – this was no exception.   The puzzle concerns two people … Read more >>

Chalicea – a setter new to the Inquisitor {but see comment 7}, and, appropriately for me, I flew to Zürich the day after the puzzle’s publication and I’m blogging from the Bernese alps. … Read more >>

Extra letters in the wordplay of across clues indicate how answers to down clues are to be entered. Seven letters have to be highlighted in the completed grid.   An 11×11 grid, and … Read more >>

I must admit to having a soft spot for Samuel’s puzzles, so I was quite looking forward to this.  Seventeen clues have a misprint in the definition, correct letters spelling an instruction about … Read more >>

Back from a week’s walking north of Alnwick, and after the ‘moorland treks’ provided by the previous two puzzles, this one was more of ‘a stroll on the beach’.  Across clues have a … Read more >>

A bit more difficult than some recent puzzles … not made easier by my going away for a weekend’s walking with no Chambers and only a rather dated Collins that I found in … Read more >>

Raich is averaging about three Inquisitors a year since his first appearance in mid-2008, and all pretty decent ones in my opinion. (And he notched up his third Listener just the weekend before, … Read more >>

With hindsight, quite a tame one from Phi.  A number of answers, with a common feature, are entered in an unusual manner, implying a numerical value for a letter of the alphabet. With … Read more >>

Midnight Saturday, guests have all gone home or gone to bed … time to pour a whisky and have a look at the crossword.  Ten unclued thematic entries (5 pairs); first letters of … Read more >>

“Each clue yields a superfluous letter …” (alert: it might not be from the wordplay, but in the definition, or elsewhere?). These give a conundrum, three possible answers, and the initials of the … Read more >>

There are 13 definition-only answers, leading to thematic entries (“all reel [sic] words”).   The remaining clues each have an extra word, letters 1 & 3 of which spell a quotation; the author’s … Read more >>

Surely this is not the same Nimrod that was active on the Listener in the 1940’s?  This was pretty hard: clues in alphabetical order of answers, to be entered in the grid in … Read more >>

After the relatively gentle strolls (or canters) of the last few weeks, this puzzle proved rather a stiffer challenge (or maybe I just wasn’t really in the mood).  Two of the first clues … Read more >>