The Times Jumbo Cryptic Crossword Book 20: The world’s most challenging cryptic crossword (The Times Crosswords)

Clues lacked the subtlety of current Times crosswords.

Love these crosswords

poor quality paper, compared to previous editions.

These are complicated, challenging, big crosswords, usually involving more than 60 clues, none of which is straightforward. The puzzles dazzle with cleverly designed clues such as puns and anagrams that lead to obscure references, quotations from English lit, figures from British history, and British colloquialisms that often are unfamiliar to American readers. Unchecked letters (i.e., squares where the across and down answers do not intersect) add to the difficulty. Finish a puzzle and you will find that you have enhanced your vocabulary with words you likely had never seen before and almost surely will never use. But that's half the fun, because each clue in a way provides its own answer. The jumbo cryptics are not something to dash off, but rather to savor over time. At least, that's what I tell myself when it takes days or even weeks to complete one.