I have an obsession with trying to put stacks in unconventional locations in grids (as you can tell from my last puzzle) and this puzzle came from having some 9s I wanted to incorporate somewhere and I was like “the middle!” so I did that.
REASON FOR THE SEEMINGLY UNRELATED TITLE: It was originally the clue to 21-Down, until (spoiler alert) I discovered that although cryptic crosswords have unchecked squares, they rarely don’t have a 1-Across (end of spoiler alert). Luckily it was also the name of a book. I think it’s inferrable enough anyway and I’m too happy with the fill around it to scrap it. It’s like my own version of the Patrick Berry “KRISS KROSS” incident of 2014. How time flies.
Enjoy the puzzle! I’ll be back next week! Happy puzzling!
– Ada, a.k.a. The Word Nerd
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