Financial Times 18,059 by FALCON

13 comments on “Financial Times 18,059 by FALCON”

1. Tons of Sayers and James on the shelves chez ginf (the late mrs ginf a great fan), and of course lots of detectives on the telly (Endeavour too pops in here… pre-Morse, but post-Dexter). As a recent FT recruit, I don’t know Falcon, but a nice tribute, and thanks Oriel.

2. Very nicely done – some super smooth cluing – though one or two of the names were unknown to me – notably FLUKE/CRAVEN and PASCOE. VANE rang a faint bell. Not that many tricky words forced by the theme – though I cannot see myself using NOBILIARY for some time.

   Thanks Oriel for the blog

3. Good puzzle.
   Great tribute.
   Excellent blog. Thanks Oriel.

4. Made me happy! Am I overthinking or did he set some false trails up?

   Presumably 11a also a reference to Laurence (“endeavour” 14d) Fox’s uncle Edward. 14d got me looking for Dexter anyway.

   Edward Woodward of 11a played the PI in the equaliser.

   Is Edwards in 28a a reference to Blake Edwards of pink panther fame? Maybe not but it had me trying to get Clouseau in.

5. Meant to confess, a dnf, as I needed help to get the ee before finishing agree and then Craven (dnk the author but should have got raven = black).

6. I have enjoyed Falcon puzzles in the past and this was a delight. As both Grant@1 and James @4 suggest, I do think a few red herrings were thrown in deliberately to keep us busy; ENDEAVOUR had me eyeing 9a as a potential MORSE until CRAVEN popped up. I had 3 pairs matched up but wasn’t familiar with VANE, WINGFIELD or FLUKE so 2 pairs weren’t properly matched until I came here. I’ve a fair few James and Dexters on my shelves too, along with so many others of this genre.
   And NOBILIARY was new to me so a good thing this was parsable, likewise ALIDADES.
   No particular favourites today, just a fun diversion overall, a likeable theme and a fitting tribute.
   Thanks for the blog, Oriel.

7. Not sure I should admit to having read most if not all of these authors and their detectives. There’s also Martin Edwards who’s written several series of detective novels to add to the red herrings. Reginald Hill wrote the Dalziel and Pascoe books, which were on TV with Warren Clarke and Colin Buchanan.

   The Jack Frost novels from R D Wingfield are of their time.

   Lovely puzzle, I enjoyed the last Falcon when it was published too. And thank you to Oriel for the blog.

8. Thanks for the blog and the grid , well done to the FT for this timely gesture and thanks to the family for allowing us one final Falcon puzzle .
   I did not know some of the names but the clues had very precise wordplay , lots of false clues as well to lead us astray .
   EDWARD Woodward famous for Callan as well plus the unfortunate Sergeant Howie in The Wicker Man .

9. Crime fiction is absolutely not my cup of tea, so this was like the blind leading the blind for me. I have heard of Dorothy L. Sayers, and now that it’s spelled out for me, also PD James, but that’s it. Fortunately the wordplay for most of the theme answers was straightforward enough that I could work them out eventually, a tribute to the setter right there. Still, I can’t claim to have finished this unaided–I made copious use of the check button and had one revealed letter.

10. An interesting challenge. We’re not all that keen on puzzles where some clues have no definition but we’re glad we gave this one a go. There were a few traps for the unwary – SAYERS’ detective being VANE rather than Wimsey, and ENDEAVOUR was a red herring as it was defined. We were puzzled for a while by JACK FROST, though, since ‘detective’ in the clue could be read at first as a definition and we weren’t familiar with ‘jack’ for ‘detective’.
    Like others we didn’t know NOBILIARY or ALIDADES, but they were clear enough from the wordplay and easily checked in Chambers.
    Thanks to the FT for giving us the puzzle and to Oriel for the blog.

11. The selected no definition thing always leaves me sweating over the easiest clues which made this a bit of a slog. Only knowing two authors and three detectives didn’t help. Jack = Detective? Nobiliary? Anyway, good tribute. Thanks.

12. As a Falcon virgin, so to speak, I found this tremendously entertaining. I will check out other Falcons bientôt. The blog helped me get from ‘canny’ to ‘foxy’ but I could see EDWARD FOX a mile off so was lazily happy with ‘fox’ – thanks Oriel.

    Thought CONFORMED excellent.

13. Late comment as I only just got round to this crossword.
    I love crime fiction so was keen to do this one, but there was one author and his character I hadn’t heard of – I now need to check out Mike W Craven – more books to read. I had worked out the answer and looked him up.
    Makes a change to see no Agatha Christie. And Harriet Vane instead of Wimsey.
    I wondered for a minute if Endeavour was going to be one although defined – but as people said no Dexter.
    One clue used the word baron which also led me to The Baron of John Creasey fame.

    All very well clued.

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