I think this is my first tangle with Peter, at least within a blogging context, though the Fifteensquared search reveals it isn’t a debut.
I often find it tricky to get to grips with an unfamiliar setter, but this one all came together fairly steadily. Good stuff, and very much a similar style and level of difficulty that we’ve come to expect on a Sunday around here.
| Across | ||
| 1 | PATOIS | Father beginning to tire of island’s dialect (6) |
| PA + T[ire] + O‘ + IS. | ||
| 4 | MERCER | Commerce recently involving textile dealer (6) |
| Hidden in [com]MERCE R[ecently]. | ||
| 9 | LOOT | Stolen goods found in toilet close to heist (4) |
| LOO + [heis]T. | ||
| 10 | STROGANOFF | Cook got saffron for dish (10) |
| Anagram of (GOT SAFFRON). | ||
| 11 | HOARSE | Animal devouring Amundsen’s first husky (6) |
| A[mundsen] in HORSE. | ||
| 12 | VIOLATED | Abused woman given cuddly toy (8) |
| VIOLA + TED. | ||
| 13 | DEPARTURE | Broadcast rude tape about king’s shift (9) |
| R in (RUDE TAPE)*. | ||
| 15 | GNAT | Brown bug finally turned into small fly (4) |
| (TAN + [bu]G)<. | ||
| 16 | TIME | Sentence served by male in band? (4) |
| M in TIE. | ||
| 17 | SCORE DRAW | Small company embarrassed by sensitive no-win situation (5,4) |
| S + CO + RED + RAW. | ||
| 21 | HEADREST | She rated foreign support (8) |
| Anagram of (SHE RATED)*. | ||
| 22 | DIRNDL | Alternative doctor in extremely dull dress (6) |
| (DR + IN)* + D[ul]L. A traditional German dress. | ||
| 24 | BELLADONNA | Boy in Lebanon destroyed poisonous plant (10) |
| LAD in LEBANON*. | ||
| 25 | NEED | ‘Miss’ is prefix to maiden name used by daughter (4) |
| NÉE + D. | ||
| 26 | STORMY | Tempestuous romance about maiden (6) |
| M in STORY. | ||
| 27 | STRESS | Force the centre of basic lock (6) |
| [ba]S[ic] + TRESS. | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | PROPOSE | Work found in writing table (7) |
| OP in PROSE. “Table” is a verb here, as in when you table a motion. But don’t do that in a posh restaurant, trust me. | ||
| 2 | TUTOR | Teacher giving boy king gold (5) |
| TUT + OR. TUT is Tutankhamun, of course, while OR is the name given to the colour gold in heraldry and coats of arms and so forth. But mainly only in crosswords, to be fair. | ||
| 3 | INSPECT | Creature swallowing catnip root for vet (7) |
| [catni]P in INSECT. | ||
| 5 | EGGNOG | Athlete finally getting Germany’s first medal returned with a drink (6) |
| [athlet]E + G[ermany] + GONG<. | ||
| 6 | CONTAINED | Checked notice and worried! (9) |
| Anagram of (NOTICE AND). | ||
| 7 | REFLECT | Soldiers felt bad about source of crack in mirror (7) |
| RE + (C[rack] in FELT*). | ||
| 8 | PREVARICATING | Sidestepping loose erratic paving (13) |
| Anagram of (ERRATIC PAVING). | ||
| 14 | ARMADILLO | God upset by deranged, evil old animal (9) |
| RA< + MAD + ILL + O. | ||
| 16 | THESEUS | University dissertations written about Greek hero (7) |
| U in THESES. | ||
| 18 | REDRAFT | Make a copy of revolutionary floating platform (7) |
| RED + RAFT. | ||
| 19 | ADDRESS | Detective Sergeant reads about speech (7) |
| Anagram of a combination of DS and READS. | ||
| 20 | SELDOM | Spies going north to trap democrat once in a while (6) |
| D in MOLES<. | ||
| 23 | RANGE | Holy woman leaving rum in kitchen fireplace (5) |
| [st]RANGE. | ||
* = anagram; < = reversed; [] = removed; underlined = definition; Hover to expand abbreviations
Fell together very quickly, except for DIRNDL, which was LOI. I was sure ‘DL’ had to fit somewhere, and though I know the word, it didn’t readily spring to mind.
Favourite was 11 ac for the surface.
Thanks Peter and Simon
As swatty says, it fell together very quickly; a nice Sunday stroll. Held up a bit on 24ac thinking at first it had to end in BANE. LOI was SELDOM as I was trying to fit CIA for a while.
Liked 10ac for its rather contradictory surface – one would hardly put saffron in a Stroganoff!
Thanks, Peter and Simon.
Enjoyable puzzle – glad it was a quick solve though as we started this very late!
Thanks to S&B.