Listen With Others

What joy! Another delightful puzzle that features familiar subject matter. Not astronomy (sorry), but Lucinda Riley, who wrote the Seven Sisters series and who is one of my favourite authors. So I was very pleased when the theme of Location, Location, Location veered away from football grounds to something more heavenly in the form of the Pleiades. And if I’d looked I would have seen that Agricola’s last offering, Black Maria, had an astronomical theme too.

Back to earth, I think the depiction in the grid of the Victoria Line from Finsbury Park through Seven Sisters (well, 6 of them) to Tottenham Hale is clever; and I enjoyed learning that Subaru and Matariki are other cultures’ names for the Pleiades.

I suspected that MEROPE would be the missing sister, and this was confirmed by the unique length of the missing word. At this stage I hadn’t located the other 6 sisters in the grid; I am glad we don’t have to highlight them, as I think there is some ambiguity and I couldn’t reach a solution in which (A)STEROPE and CELAENO don’t touch at a corner. (Looking at the solution now, I see they do touch, hence the clever wording in the preamble.) With its challenging clues and without – or perhaps even with – the touching corners, Location, Location Location would be for me a POTY contender. I certainly enjoyed solving it. Thanks Agricola.