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Clue Cryptic with Herzwesten

Well, herzwesten and I are back on our bs (bud stuff), this time with a murder mystery, so don your deerstalkers and pack your pipes, gumshoes! Here's herzy:  "I'm very excited for people to crack this case! It takes me back to a time when I used to edit logic puzzles professionally and in every issue we'd have a linked series of them all around a central mystery. The name of our fictional detective was Ivan Inkling, though sometimes his niece Anita Clew would take center stage. But don't worry, this puzzle doesn't contain nearly as many groan-inducing puns!" Thanks as ever to the stalwart skaldskaparmal for his very helpful test. (As with our text adventure cryptic, this puzzle makes use of the magic of spreadsheets.) [ solve online ]
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AVCX with Deanne Cliburn (and bonus 5x7!)

Deanne is awesome, and I would say she's destined for big things—but she's already accomplishing them all over the crossworld ! I'm beyond honored to be a part of her first cryptic, and I know I won't be the only one waiting impatiently for her next one... Deanne says:  “Joe reached out to me to encourage me to take advantage of the opportunity to audition for an AVCX cryptic so, naturally, I roped him into collaborating with me. Joe was amazing to work with and we had so much fun writing clues that we made this fun little bonus 5x7 (link below).” Big thanks to Steve Mossberg  for his editing and the rest of the AVCX team for making this puzzle possible! Hope you enjoy the puzzles! [ AVCX puzzle ] [ 5x7   solve online ] [ 5x7 jpuz ]
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Guess Who #3 with Bob Weisz

When Bob Weisz asks you to make a cryptic with him, you say "yes please!" before he changes his mind! Bob was as fun to work with as his puzzles are to solve (that's "very," for those uncertain), and I also enjoyed learning about the subject he picked. Speaking of which... This puzzle relates to a specific someone—can you use the thirteen themed answers to figure out who before the grid spells out their name in the circled squares? Many thanks to our test solvers this time around! skaldskaparmal (check out his puzzles  here ) Brad (check out his puzzles  here ) catherinewheel8 (check out her stream  here ) Hope you enjoy the puzzle! [ solve online ] [ jpuz ]
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Read a Dang Book #1

This puzzle is the first in a new series! Every answer word is from a specific book, and when you enter a correct answer in the grid, you'll get a quote from that book that contains that word. Can you guess the book before you finish the puzzle? Test-solve thanks to the Rackenfracker duo of dadgumituh and jmsr525, who, in addition to their usual variety cryptic tricks, have begun a series of smaller puzzles geared toward folks newer to cryptics! [ solve online ]
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Jigsaw with Juff 2!

Hello, puzzlers! A while back , Juff and I made an alphabet jigsaw* on the premise that we don't generally enjoy them—and it was fun, so here's another one! *An alphabet jigsaw has 26 answers, each starting with a different letter of the alphabet, and you must figure out where the answers fit in the grid. But wait! We made different versions so you can choose your difficulty level; these are roughly in increasing order of difficulty. If you just want to solve a regular cryptic (with enumerations and locations of the answers given as normal) that just so happens to have one answer per letter of the alphabet, click here ( ipuz | pdf ). However, if you want to try an alphabet jigsaw that gives you… …the length and starting letter of each answer, click here ( ipuz | pdf ). …the length of each answer, with clues alphabetized by their answer’s starting letter within each length, click here ( ipuz | pdf ). (If you don't know which version to pick, this is the one we recomme
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Guess Who #2

This puzzle relates to a specific someone—can you use the ten themed answers to figure out who before the grid spells out the answer in the circled squares? This puzzle was requested  via  my  stream   by DragonEngineer97, a wonderful member of the twitch crossword community! They  picked the subject and a few of the entries, but left me to my own devices for the rest. Thanks are due to several folks for their test solves and helpful perspectives this time round: skaldskaparmal (check out his puzzles here ) Brad (check out his puzzles here ) Hyphen-ated (check out their stream here ) Hope you enjoy the puzzle! [ solve online ] [ jpuz ]
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Guess Who #1

This puzzle is the first in a new series, and it relates to a specific someone—can you use the seven themed answers to figure out who before the grid spells out the answer at 15a? Liari  (a cryptic  setter  and  streamer  herself)  requested this puzzle via  my  stream —and was  the first to do so! She let me pick the subject, and it remains to be seen whether she will guess who it is... Many thanks to skaldskaparmal (also a cryptic  setter ) for a test solve that improved a number of clues! [ solve online ] [ ipuz ]
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