Listener 4205 Murder Mystery 2 by Gos

[Ruthrobin]

Just two hours to fill this grid but then we had some grid staring to complete the endgame. Still, it was good to have a set of simple clues and an easy romp for a change after some we have seen this summer.

[olichant]

I enjoyed this - though am biased, as I am a great fan of the author (and, like emcee, probably wasted quite a lot of time looking for other novels). My final resolution looks solid enough, although I have been wondering whether any other thematic material should reveal itself, and whether I am missing anything. Preamble is however satisfied. I can heartily recommend one particular novel by this author, but now is obviously not the time to do so!

[the_heisman]

I feel a little underwhelmed by the theme and the PDM unless I have missed something. The changes at the end seem a little limited in scope.

[sunny-dave]

All done - quite liked that one - mostly done without any recourse even to BRB or interweb - just a quick wiki to confirm the 'tec and novel.

[Cruncher]

Slightly underwhelmed by this one too with some areas of confusion for me. Not especially happy about the wordplay for 38a, 51a and 56dn - rather loose for the average Listener IMHO. Still the end result looks about right so off it goes

[Alekhine]

Hmm ... not too impressed with this.

"Entries involving this name are jumbled to make new words"?

I submit that the relevant name does not appear in the appropriate place until the entries are jumbled. Quite a different thing in my book.

And we'll ignore a spurious letter or two as well, shall we?

Pass me the Z-Cup.

[Cruncher]

Sorry Alekhine - I've still got it

[Ruthrobin]

Actually if anyone is still reading, I can certainly win the Z cup by pointing out that there is a foreign letter in this one, that cannot be transliterated into an ordinary English upper case letter (a diacritical mark over it makes it a quite different letter in a foreign language - upper or lower case). It intersected with an English letter that is similar. Seems to me that (in view of the recent decision over B/b), whichever you enter is wrong one way or the other. So any happy camper who still thinks he has an 'all correct' record is out this week. Hoho - I think the editors have shot themselves in the foot this time!

[trux]

RR: are you suggesting that a Speccie-like "Ignore one accent" should have been included in pre-ramble? And, by corollary, in Translations, there should have been: One letter in the final grid must be written in lower case. Would have made life so much simpler, I agree.... (Hell hath no fury like......etc.)

[Ruthrobin]

No Trux - even 'Ignore one accent' could not change one phonetic symbol into another. The two letters in question, which intersected in the grid, are two totally different phonemes and no fudging can make them the same - not just 'ignoring accents' - so whichever you wrote, you were wrong in one or the other. Far more serious than attempting to convert a Russian letter to a lower case B (which it doesn't exactly resemble) as was the case in the 'Translation'. I wonder how the editors will wriggle out of that!

[Staurologist]

I agree with the general opinion that this didn't provide the usual challenge that so many Listener solvers relish. But that doesn't mean that it didn't give pleasure. I for one enjoyed being reminded of the author, and I suggest reading the one that contains a disquisition on the subgenre in which the author specialized. I also enjoyed the clues, with some good misleading definitions and a few & lits; 11 was particularly entertaining, although it would have been greatly improved by omission of the first word, a change from "are" to "may be", and a question mark at the end. This makes me wonder how much editing of clues the editors actually do, to help composers improve their puzzles. In the words of one great editor I knew, "editors should edit".

Incidentally, the mystery author featured in a Listener puzzle about 10 years ago, although on that occasion, much more, including the subgenre, was revealed in the preamble.

[Note to Ruthrobin: is it not generally the case that accents in answers are ignored, even if this is an unwritten convention? I don't buy the phonemic argument--a letter in an across light may be pronounced differently from the same letter in the crossing down light (e.g. 20 and 21, 48 and 49). In IPA such pairs have different phonetic symbols, irrespective of whether the phonemic variant is conferred by a diacritic.]

[Ruthrobin]

Yes, Staurologist, I should probably not have introduced phonemes into the argument - these are different phonemes but more than that. It isn't just a case of an accented letter. It is actually a completely different letter in the alphabet in question, that intersects with an English one. In upper or lower case, the difference is respected (though there are only a handful of upper case examples of the letter in question - when it occurs at the start of a word that allocates upper case in that language - to say more would rouse the AB police). It isn't merely an issue of pronunciation identified by the IPA either. If, for example, we had DOG intersecting with DOC (which is, in effect, what has happened here), you would be 'wrong' whichever you chose.

My amusement is that the B/b issue in Translation could have caused so many people to be marked wrong when an even more blatant situation, like this, should, by the same rules, eliminate everybody.

Encouraged by your comments about the author, I might be tempted to read some of that person's, thanks.

[Cruncher]

RuthRobin, do we perceive that one is still a little bridled by the Translation debacle (with or without the accent)?

[Ruthrobin]

Indeed we do, Cruncher and I am not the only one.

[Anapice]

At least in this one, although the preamble wasn't perfectly worded, the instruction wasn't tacked on to the end of a clue in capitals:-)

[AndrewG-S]

"To B or not to b, that is the question". Sorry rR, just could not resist that fatuous rejoinder. Hopefully no one will read it anyway as this thread is pretty much over!

[x_word_fan]

"Que Sera, Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be)",

[JackDeCrow]

Hah! I see your point RR. I wasn't previously aware of that distinction, but a quick look-up of the alphabet concerned in Wikipedia reveals they are quite particular about it. I guess the only defence would be that, here, we could be said to be using a term which has been adopted into the English language (and is therefore subject to the traditionally dismissive approach to diacritics in crosswords), whereas in Translation we were supposed to use a full-on translation. It's a fine line, though - and very unfortunate timing!

[Ruthrobin]

Thanks Jack de Crow - it is even worse though - it isn't even just a letter with a diacritic - it is a different letter that is respected even in Chambers. My ongoing rant continues!

[ichkeria]

Sorry to bang on about this but with others banging on about it too ... I'd like to say that anyone who got as far as seeing that KOHB was meant to be the Russian word КОНЬ, but couldn't either see or accept that that needed to be changed to KOHb in the final grid, is pursuing a pretty hopeless and illogical cause

[Philoctetes]

Got round to doing the wordsearch last night - and found two titles. Admittedly one was part of the other and "cryptically represented" a valid answer. But I did nearly stop looking when I found it.