Listen With Others

I rather think Somniloquist will have fired up the solving community with this one! For me, moments of despair were relieved by shouts of triumph as each clue slowly bit the dust. I smiled at 1dn but generally maintained a fairly tortured visage as I stumbled through these tough clues.

Completing the gridfill was like surviving my children’s terrible twos only to discover the traumatic teens lay ahead. These included a search for 3 unruly characters, a hostelry and an escapee. Fortunately the 3 characters’ unusual names helped and I was able to locate them even without Somniloquist’s clever “openings” hint, which I discovered only later. Locating escapee DERMOT TRELLIS however was almost impossible and required the correct interpretation of “from start to finish”.

But not as agonising as deciding how to depict graphically the burning of the characters in the Red Swan Hotel. I hope my depiction of blackened letters with flames is acceptable because another Haregate is the last thing we need. (PS I understand that flames are accepted. Phew!)

I suspect the book is clever too – thanks for introducing it. Not so much my scene, but one day, when I have time, I might just read it.