Cranium-Cracking Cryptic Crosswords

Tony Chesterley returns with a new compendium of 40 mind-warping puzzles to further delight fans of the cryptic crossword. Unlike the conventional crossword clue, a cryptic clue offers two paths to its answer: a straight definition and a disguised wordplay description, which might involve a charade, anagram, word reversal, homophone or word within a word - or any combination thereof. For instance, the clue "Clothing subsidiary owned by men (8)" leads to the answer GARMENTS ("clothing"), which is ARM ("subsidiary") inside of ("owned by") GENTS ("men"). Sleuthing the puzzle writer's secret code provides mental amusement far beyond that of the regular crossword. So sharpen your pencils, tune in your brain and dive into this sumptuous stockpile of surreptitious surprises!