Enigmatic Variations No.1726 – Gripping Yarns by Luxor

“Two clues are provided for each of the shaded rows. Solvers must reorder the letters of their answers to give two creatures which might feature in GRIPPING YARNS. These are to be entered consecutively. Solvers must highlight a three-word phrase (13 cells in a straight line) describing the overall theme. Chambers Dictionary (2016) is recommended.”

There was nothing festive about this one!

The clues were all normal – no extra letters or anything like that – although there were five thematic pairs, which were to be reordered as follows:

The NW-SE diagonal spells out SPIDER AND PREY, which is to be highlighted.

This was quite a light one. There were no fewer than five hidden reversals (1, 34, 8dn, 33dn, 39dn) as well as a number of other ‘gimmes’, and both IODATES and IODISED appeared in the grid.

Depending on how strict one was with oneself (I have no problem with using an anagram solver!) the nature of the thematic material became apparent pretty quickly too, such that one could confirm online as necessary that each was indeed a spider.

It shouldn’t need to be said, but there’s nothing wrong with that! The material may not have been festive, but the fact that it was solvable despite any mince-pie excess certainly was!

Thanks Luxor and Happy New Year to all!

As always, please let me know if anything isn’t clear.