A Crossword Puzzle for Crime and Mystery Lovers

When we found out that James Brydon—author of The Moment Before Drowning, one of our picks for the season’s best debut crime novels—is also an acclaimed crossword setter, we had to ask: could a CrimeReads crossword puzzle be made, a puzzle specially designed for crime and mystery lovers, with surprising and erudite clues that also contain a hidden message or pattern of some kind? A very particular request, to be sure.

Generous man that he is, Brydon agreed and was more than up to the challenge. You can find his crosswords every month in The Guardian. You can read his novel—a brooding noir set between postwar France and Algeria—now out in the States from Akashic Books. And, as of today, you can lock horns with his newest puzzle, custom made for crime and mystery lovers. Can you complete the puzzle and find the hidden pattern?

James Brydon

James Brydon grew up in North Shropshire, England, and studied English at Oxford. For over a decade, he has worked as a cryptic crossword setter. Under the name Picaroon, he sets two puzzles a month in the Guardian, and he compiles for the Spectator, the Times of London, and the fiendish Listener puzzle, drawing inspiration from sources as diverse as the films of Akira Kurosawa and the six-fold symmetry of snowflakes. He is fluent in French and Serbian, is currently polishing his German, and can hold a conversation in passable Chinese. He lives in St. Albans, England, with his wife and daughter. The Moment Before Drowning is his debut novel.

CrimeReads Brief: Week of July 20, 2018

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