Hannibal's men / SAT 4-29-17 / Fictional spy who first appeared in Call for Dead / Writer with given names Robert Lawrence / Capital for King Zog / Brisk competitor / Augmenting old-style

Constructor:Martin Ashwood-Smith

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME:none 

Word of the Day: GEORGE SMILEY (36A: Fictional spy who first appeared in "Call for the Dead") —

George Smiley is a fictional character created by John le Carré. Smiley is a career intelligence officer with "The Circus", the British overseas intelligence agency. He is a central character in the novels Call for the Dead, A Murder of Quality, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, The Honourable Schoolboy, and Smiley's People, and a supporting character in The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, The Looking Glass War and The Secret Pilgrim. (wikipedia)

Whole lot of nothin' at first, and then I went on this weird loping excursion across the grid (unusual—very unusual on a Saturday):


Aside from that cluster in the North, the first answer I was sure of was ABATTOIR, which luckily I at least partially spelled correctly. Filled some stuff in around its tail end, and bing bam boom I'm way down in the SE corner. From this point on, I generally had enough leverage to work my way through the grid without much trouble. SE corner filled up pretty fast, and once DEAD GIVEAWAY (21D: It's pretty obvious) floated up, that fat, open center became far more tractable, far less daunting. Took me a while to get MARILYN MONROE (15D: Famed Pop Art subject) because I (very) wrongly assumed 13A: Hannibal's men ended in an "S," which gave me the wrong initial letter for the MARILYN answer. I knew -SMILEY (read "Smiley's People" a couple years back) but totally forgot his first name, so getting into the SW corner was a little tricky. Had SUMMERED for WINTERED at 11D: Spent a season in the sun? for a bit, and needed nearly ever cross for NATANT (18A: Swimming), an actual word that I've never seen used anywhere. Biggest problem spot of the day was easily the NW, where [Hannibal's men] ("THE A-TEAM") just destroyed me, and --ART- sent my pattern recognition program straight to ECARTE (3D: Trick-taking card game). Like HEARTS, ECARTE is Also A Trick-Taking Game. Ugh. But at the end of the solve, I was a little bit under 9 minutes—very average for a Saturday. Maybe even a hair's breadth faster than usual. I quite liked this one. The center came out really very good. Connective tissue is mostly strong, with DURA/ITSA being the only weak spot.


I think I mentioned that erstwhile crossword plagiarist Timothy Parker was back publishing puzzles for Universal (a widely syndicated crossword). I thought you'd like to see his latest creation, which is ... notable? ... for two things. One, its theme—the title is "Initial Sandwich"; see if you can figure out why. And while you're at it, please admire the second notable feature—a truly stellar clue (in the blue strip, up top) for SNOB:

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]