Click HERE to download a printable PDF of this puzzle.
Puzzled? No more cross words! Read Kosman and Picciotto on “Solving The Nation’s Cryptic Puzzles.” Or watch this video.
ACROSS
1 19th-century novelist spewing hot air galore (7,5)
9 Shift imprecise red states’ boundaries (5)
10 Bill and I emptied our cheeks (9)
11 Draw tired spouse (9)
12 Lead in Titanic after Ocean’s 10 (4)
14 Unproductive, endless enjoyment with something you use to 3 (6)
15 Nation’s carbon-free stuff is brown (8)
17 10 in genuine counterargument (8)
19 Prepare for birth without an initial legacy (6)
22 Blue beam gets around the speed of light (4)
23 Lie in beds and smile mysteriously (9)
26 Oversee appeal involving skeezy individual lives (9)
27 Nocturnal goddess returns to encompass unknown void (5)
28 Bicycle parts for each boy’s official representative (12)
DOWN
1 Makes haste to obtain first of decorated skins (5)
2 Pair of rebels raised cane on Tuesday to participate in a historic diversion (7)
3 Create a mosaic of hawk in dilapidated 19 (10)
4 For example, Annie Oakley’s beginning new version of harp number (6)
5 Slave scrambled to fuel a Western city (3,5)
6 Second person, right as always (4)
7 Pilot pressing disemboweled cat (6)
8 Fiction of the past? (8)
13 Musical mistake: reusing many elements (4,2,4)
14 Stronghold favoring lock (8)
16 Bit of data kept in weirdly darkish storage device (4,4)
18 Muscle Beach’s leader: Scary Spice (6)
20 Cook no basil for people deficient in pigment (7)
21 Evaluate more than one: 10 seconds (6)
24 Woman comes through well enough (5)
25 Support piece of a plane (4)
SOLUTION TO PUZZLE NO. 3490
ACROSS 1 STAG NATION 8 S + INK 9 GENE + VA 11 hidden (cantor) 12 C + ONE 13 STA(I)N 15 MI(RAC)LE (car rev.) 17 TR(AGED)Y 22 [k]LAT + ER (rev.) 23 initial letters 24 MIM[e]OS + A 25 CH(A + S)ER (search) 26 “beer” (bier) 27 PER(CUSS + I)ON
DOWN 1 AS + COT 2 TIN + CT 3 ANT + E 4 G(A + R.N.)ET 5 N.E. + PAL 6 IND + I + A 7 hidden 10 GEN + I.E. 14 final letters 16 “seeders” 18 RE(C)AP 19 A + ROSE 20 BA(I)RN 21 hidden 22 alternate letters 23 HOBO[ken]
Joshua Kosman and Henri PicciottoJoshua Kosman and Henri Picciotto are The Nation’s puzzlers. To read more about Kosman, click here. To read more about Picciotto, click here. Kosman and Picciotto explain what they’re up to in “Solving The Nation’s Cryptic Crosswords” (also available as a PDF). Check out The Nation’s Current Issue page each week for the latest puzzle.