3x; Henry Rathvon, | ae 1 Sloane, and Des MacHale oe The Mind-Challenge Puzzle Book Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2022 with funding from Kahle/Austin Foundation https://archive.org/details/mindchallengepuzO000unse The Mind-Challenge Puzzle Book Edited by Emily Cox, Henry Rathvon, Henry Hook, Paul Sloane, and Des MacHale S. Sterling Publishing Co., Inc. LO gOS. GES. ASR Published by Sterling Publishing Co., Inc. 387 Park Avenue South, New York, NY 10016 This book is comprised of material from the following Sterling titles: First-Class Crosswords © 2001 by Emily Cox & Henry Rathvon Hard-to-Solve Word Puzzles © 2000 by Crossword Magazine, Inc. Perplexing Pixel Puzzles © 2002 by Dell Magazines, a division of Crosstown Publications The Ultimate Lateral and Critical Thinking Puzzle Book © 2002 by Sterling Publishing Co., Inc. © 2002 by Sterling Publishing Co., Inc. Distributed in Canada by Sterling Publishing c/o Canadian Manda Group, One Atlantic Avenue, Suite 105 Toronto, Ontario, Canada M6K 3E7 Distributed in Great Britain and Europe by Cassell PLC Welligton House, 125 Strand, London WC2R OBB, England Distributed in Australia by Capricorn Link (Australia) pty Ltd. P.O. Box 6651, Baulkham Hills, Business Centre, NSW 2153, Australia Manufactured in China All rights reserved ISBN 1-4027-0477-1 CONTENTS Puzzles First-Class Crosswords i Hard-to-Solve Word Puzzles ey Perplexing Pixel Puzzle 142 Lateral Thinking Puzzles Mag Lateral Thinking Clues 249 Answers First-Class Crosswords 263 Hard-to-Solve Word Puzzles 219 Perplexing Pixel Puzzle 298 Lateral Thinking Puzzles 306 eTUusTAesd esissu4 Lv ¢ i} je it ; | r (Ivy < | i. t (js = 4 Laie ne] xsi Goideuriaiois ' ¢ ie i. 214wend meee iOweeo.) 2260-27) 4 -irst-Class CROSSWORDS INTRODUCTION The puzzles in this section—First-Class Crosswords—have traveled thousands of miles. They've been in cities of the United States from one coast to the other. They've crossed oceans and vis- ited foreign lands, and have weathered thunderstorms and winds at high altitude. They've been scrutinized by people rich and poor, and have been attacked by pencil, pen, magic marker, and even crayon. These are puzzles from the U.S. Airways in-flight magazine Attaché, which was launched in 1997. Nestled in the pocket of every seat back on every plane, this magazine and its puzzles offered travelers some heady diversions while airborne. We’re excited to have these crosswords made available again—to a land-based population this time. The puzzles in this book were introduced to Attaché by journalist Jay Heinrichs, who visited the 1997 American Crossword Tournament in Stamford, Connecticut. This yearly solving com- petition, hosted by Will Shortz, crossword editor of The New York Times, is a weekend-long affair attended by the country’s best solvers and constructors. Heinrichs came away from the weekend determined to bring to Attaché the puzzle-writing talent he’d seen in action. We were honored to receive an invitation to edit the puzzles for him, and to make a number of them ourselves. Our guest constructors have included Henry Hook, Cathy Millhauser, Merl Reagle, Mike Shenk, and many others considered tops in the field. One thing that attracted these construc- tors to the job was the novelty of the puzzle diagram that Attaché wanted: a grid with 17 squares per side. A daily newspaper puzzle usually has 15 squares on a side, and a Sunday-sized puzzle typically has 21. The intermediate size of the featured Attaché crosswords offered solvers a man- ageable challenge during their air travels, while also giving constructors a chance to stretch out a little from the dailies and experiment in a new space. But in each issue, two pages of puzzles appeared, so we typically authored a daily-sized 15- by-15-square puzzle to go with the featured novelty. We've been greatly helped in our work by Lance Elko, editor-in-chief of Attaché. A number of his keenest interests (such as bluegrass and other American roots—oriented music) have almost certainly seeped into the puzzles by journalistic osmosis. Thanks are extended also to Paul Carstensen and Kendra Gemma, who streamlined the design and kept the gremlins at bay. We're grateful to Peter Gordon for inviting us to bring these U.S. Airways puzzles to Sterling. We hope everyone solving them on the ground will be at least a little bit uplifted. —Emily Cox and Henry Rathvon