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ACROSS
1 Conquest provides material for a series of poems (6,8)
9 Plain ridiculous after RV trade-in (7)
10 Tangible deed: splitting mah-jongg piece (7)
11 Uncool desire to move back around road (5)
12 Prophet: “Originally, zygote comes before both egg and chicken” (9)
13 Priest decapitated ruminant (4)
14 Appeared to interrupt Blair rudely, like the British Parliament (9)
17 Hawk, getting nearer, grabs pine first off (9)
19 Satisfactory haul is put away (4)
22 Undercover revolutionary, noticing nothing (9)
24 The last bit of flavor is the difference between sour and bitter (5)
26 Visits a restaurant to sauté bananas (4,3)
27 Prisoner’s naked display on a platform (7)
28 Artist exerts upward force on government figure with firm control (7,7)
DOWN
1 Small, level spot for critter? (5)
2 A cure-all without strings attached? (7)
3 Rome, by leaps and bounds, becoming something still undeveloped (6)
4 Maintaining extraordinary zeal, Gabriel’s upset an unsavory character
(9)
5 Seaman sustains Q&A in country (5)
6 Gives a shout, roughly 90 miles outside capital of Azerbaijan (8)
7 One spreading the news through town about extremely thickset beast
(7)
8 Lugosi takes a bow with a pastry (4,4)
13 Legislator’s cry of disappointment: “A piece of garlic in the foie gras!” (8)
15 Goodness gracious—I packed fish in a freighter (5,4)
16 Collection of airs with very bad smell? Sure (8)
18 A slice of apricot-tasting cheese (7)
20 Whirlwind ran wild, breaking into a commotion (7)
21 Virginia maiden promoted an underling (6)
23 Vamp starts to incite naughtiness through risqué ostentation (5)
25 Crap gets smuggled in, I’d reckon (5)
SOLUTION TO PUZZLE NO. 3424
ACROSS 1 LE(GALES)E 5 U + PH(OL)D (lo rev.) 10 CLEA (anag.) + R 11 MO(T + ORCA)DE 12 F(R)EE (&lit.) 13 anag. 15 [f]RESH + APING 17 final letters 18 vid[e]o anag. 20 S + TARS + HIPS 24 LASCIVIO (anag.) + US 26 “lude” 28 [k/P]-EANU + TOIL 29 rev. hidden 30 D + REAR + Y 31 SYNO (anag.) + NY + MS
DOWN 1 LUC(I + F)ER (cruel anag., &lit.) 2 GEE + Z(ER)S 3 hidden 4 pun 6 PURI(TANIS)M (saint anag.) 7 2 defs. 8 [ad]DRESS + Y 9 2 defs. 14 HA(R)D + “licker” 16 GRADU (anag.) + ALLY 19 ON(STAG)E 21 “I stray” 22 S(A DIS)T + S 23 EL + OP-ED 25 hidden 27 2 defs.
