Solving time: 15:26, the last 4 mins of which on 18dn.
I found this a little harder than other recent Paul puzzles, but this may have been through unfamiliarity with the theme author, Vladimir Nabokov; of the novels in the grid, I’d heard of Lolita but not Pale Fire or Bend Sinister, nor the character Humbert Humbert who narrates Lolita, but worst of all I couldn’t remember the vowels in his surname (Nebekev? Nibokev?) before eventually making sense of the wordplay.
* = anagram, “X” = sounds like ‘X’.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | CRIME WAVE; I (= ‘individual’) + MEW (= ‘bird’), all in CRAVE (= ‘need’) – very nice clue, with a pun on ‘wave’ in the definition (‘current transgressions?’). |
| 6/8 | BEND SINISTER – ‘sinister’ means ‘left’ in heraldry, with ‘dexter’ being the right. |
| 9 | PAN-AM + A |
| 10 | LO + LIT. + A – when solving I didn’t understand ‘books’ = LIT; now I realise that it’s an abbreviation for ‘literature’, but I that’s a bit indirect for my liking. |
| 11 | PALE + FIRE |
| 12 | STOLEN; STOLE (= ‘scarf’) + [ma]N |
| 15 | S(PEC)TATE |
| 16 | HIGH-BORN; R.N. (= ‘sailors’) after HIGH (= ‘rotten’) + B.O. (= ‘stink’) |
| 19 | S(P)HERE – Shere Khan is a tiger from The Jungle Book. |
| 21 | ATOM-BOMB; [c]OMB after A TOMB |
| 22 | MIMOSA; rev. of (A + SO + M + I’M) |
| 24 | YEMENI; (ENEMY)* + I – Saana, or Sana, is the capital of Yemen. |
| 25 | KEDGEREE; EDGE + REEK, with the K moved to the front |
| 26 | SHOT (2 defs) – a ‘still’ as in a photograph. Good clue but difficult. |
| 27 | MOVIE STAR; VIE in MOSTAR |
| Down | |
|---|---|
| 1 | CHIN + O |
| 2 | IN IT + I + AL[l] – because you have to be ‘in it to win it’. |
| 3 | EXTRA (2 defs) |
| 4 | A + PROP + OS (= ‘outsize’, i.e. ‘large fitting’) |
| 5 | ESPALIERS; (LIES + SPARE)* – lattices to train trees and plants. |
| 6 | BENEFIT; (FINE)* in BET |
| 7 | NUM + ERATO + R |
| 13 | THIRTIETH; (HIT THEIR)* + T[arget] – this looked so unlikely as anagram fodder that I ignored it until it couldn’t be anything else. The 30th wedding anniversary is the pearl anniversary. |
| 14 | N(E)O + LOG + IS + M – a new word. |
| 17,20 | HUMBER THUMBER + T – I loved ‘one hitching from Hull’ for ‘Humber thumber’. |
| 18 | NABOKOV; rev. of (V + OK + OBAN) – for ages I thought this must be a homophone (‘brings to mouth…’). Eventually I wondered if the ‘very’ could give the final ‘V’ and realised it was actually a reversal, although I don’t really see how ‘brings to mouth’ can mean ‘reads upwards’. |
| 22 | MIDGE[t] |
| 23 | SHEER (2 defs) |
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