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Toughie No. 22 — cryptic crossword

A toughie puzzle: 40 clues on a 15×15 grid. Solve it online — check your answers as you go, ask for a hint, and read how each clue works once it is solved.

Across

  1. Brush, when cultivated! (5)
  2. Eight spat out in a mess, making pasta (9)
  3. Some growers show vetch (3)
  4. Crowded midday meal — sandwiches for the trip, perhaps (6,5)
  5. Crazy king trapped by a cow on the rampage (5)
  6. Placed in reverse, it shows a face (4)
  7. An overdue refit for Cook's ship (9)
  8. Plant found in Tuscan nature reserve (5)
  9. Ward staff produce a command and some fibs (9)
  10. Minor turned round with knight, looking gaunt (5)
  11. Naked, clutching grand, gives a gentle prod (5)
  12. Prison officer's dance is zany (9)
  13. Settle up about wages (5)
  14. Epic tenor performing at a party (9)
  15. Starts to enjoy a tasty snack! (4)
  16. Collect a church service (5)
  17. Devastating blow to the chest, delivered from within (5,6)
  18. Leaders in Beware Of Adders — a constrictor (3)
  19. Pa, honesty abandoned, in tights (9)
  20. Fees pocketing time make pieces for two (5)

Down

  1. Killed a great many (4)
  2. Discerned as dodgy, so cancelled (9)
  3. Parboil badly, showing extremes of mood (7)
  4. So energy channelled into cities makes clubs (9)
  5. A boss in the lead (5)
  6. Hall don, unusually, from low country (7)
  7. So much, in music, is kept in constant order (5)
  8. Essentially, leery ninth is all over the place (10)
  9. Extra darkness masks a detection system (5)
  10. Thrash, reportedly, a citizen of the screen (4)
  11. Trap and grass a local retailer (6,4)
  12. Psychiatrist's era — one of contraction (9)
  13. A bad plate, dropped, is easily changed (9)
  14. Ham type, badly cast, shows fellow feeling (7)
  15. Caused a weak red mixture (7)
  16. Smile broadly when fish is deprived of river (4)
  17. Girl's ring is a rope for the cowboy (5)
  18. Tea fashionable in a range of shops (5)
  19. Nitro, when blended, gives an opening (5)
  20. Beach, with daughter gone, is without (4)

More: Toughie cryptic crosswords.

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