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Puzzle No. 3397

Joshua Kosman and Henri Picciotto

April 21, 2016

Puzzled? No more cross words! Read Kosman and Picciotto on “Solving The Nation’s Cryptic Puzzles.” Or watch this video.

Click HERE to download a printable PDF of this puzzle.

ACROSS

 1 & 27 Traitor goes before that woman sooner (6)

 3 Mercury is alive (11)

 9 Nobel Prize–winning writer reviewed Fleming and Newman (7)

10 Foster child, returning to have dinner, comes to a halt (5,2)

11 Apple overhauled iCloud (i.e., server) at first (6,9)

12 Hide mysteriously around large city (5)

14 Vietnamese borders engulfed in a second campaign (8)

17 Directions from Arizona huts? I’m disoriented (8)

18 Flurry of half-vitality (5)

20 Dog running back in Swiss city’s sports field (8,7)

24 Sue, when unguarded, is like some gems (4-3)

25 Mom foolishly invested in most of Garbo’s ring (7)

26 Navy errs, in a bizarre occasion that will help complete three of the Across clues (11)

27 See 1

DOWN

 1 Deserter’s grenade exploding near capital of Estonia (8)

 2 Rehearsal for Capone, Capone, Capone? (5)

 3 Friend’s religion built from same quirk, reinterpreted (9)

 4 I had gone ahead and done nothing (5)

 5 Ruler, shifting from neutral to drive, adores equipment providing indulgent treatment? (3,6)

 6 America: Asimov’s home, in retrospect? (5)

 7 Lives matter when protected by initials of 9 members of the aristocracy (9)

 8 Meal is gone again? (6)

13 Bit of zucchini in one brand of potato chips leads you and me to an efficient way of serving food (4,5)

14 Turmoil at vicious individual who maims (9)

15 Weirdly grim conservative framing answer like some animals (9)

16 Car commercial included in list (8)

19 Peninsula left off of African nation (6)

21 Media outlet shot a bit of video outside Connecticut (3-2)

22 Lacking a subject, delusional statement is brought up in rigid doctrine (5)

23 Frisbee with zero speed or energy (5)

SOLUTION TO PUZZLE NO. 3396 ACROSS 1 letter bank 10 [c]OMIC + RON 11 YE(SHIV)A 12 “Zen-ophobia,” “Xena-phobia” 13 PU TON (rev.) 14 2 defs. 16 2 defs. 18 WARM(ONGE)R (gone anag.) 19 A SIS 22 C(LOT)H 23 anag. 26 anag. 27 BOL (rev.) + STER (anag.) 28 pun

DOWN 2 A + V(I)AN 3 anag. 4 hidden 5 LE(YDEN + J)AR (deny anag.) 6 PAS + SPORT 7 [s]-PRINTOUT-S 8 anag. 9 CO-AXES 15 anag. 16 MAG + I + CWAND (anag.) 17 PO + WHAT + AN 18 WI(CHI)TA (wait anag.) 20 SA(LAR[d])Y 21 MEL[t] + LOW 24 NO BLY 25 [pa]INTER

Joshua Kosman and Henri PicciottoJoshua Kosman and Henri Picciotto are The Nation’s puzzlers. To read more about Kosman, click here. To read more about Picciotto, click here. Kosman and Picciotto explain what they’re up to in “Solving The Nation’s Cryptic Crosswords” (also available as a PDF). Check out The Nation’s Current Issue page each week for the latest puzzle.


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