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Toughie No. 40 — 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. Attract conditions and work behind the scenes (4,7)
  2. Thieving bird drops mag for a dish (3)
  3. Prohibit maintenance for one dispensing drinks (7)
  4. Top pals in a muddle over portable computers (7)
  5. Piece of roof concealed until evening (4)
  6. Nice point developed from the start (9)
  7. Endless committee produces a wild pig (4)
  8. Walk delicately about the chopped meat (5)
  9. Open ground for part of the athletics (5)
  10. Unions arranged in grim areas (9)
  11. World body slated for admitting learner — not intended (9)
  12. Detection device that works both ways (5)
  13. Dependable idols, sadly broken (5)
  14. Prepare copy as the tide turns (4)
  15. Estates by the headland give the scenery (9)
  16. Sinister daughter on the boat (4)
  17. Business jargon for two and two making five (7)
  18. In the midst of it, Tom sang wildly (7)
  19. Grain that sounds twisted (3)
  20. Leave a supporter in no time at all (5,6)

Down

  1. Common home for the local (6,5)
  2. Cyril composed the words (5)
  3. Drowsy principal is one who lies in (10)
  4. Mender, about to couple with the crew (9)
  5. Knight bothered only about material (5)
  6. Pest running wild in the clan (4)
  7. Expert yearned to be drawn out (9)
  8. Bend at the heads of every sinuous snake (3)
  9. A bit I damaged, being kicked! (5)
  10. A slice, we're told, gives calm (5)
  11. Brought back to life by king, with true screed rewritten (11)
  12. Cosmic rope unravelled, giving a laboratory instrument (10)
  13. Pale panic breaking out over a domestic device (9)
  14. Radical one gets judo grade in time — but is laid off (9)
  15. Name that is odd and unknown — a Blyton character (5)
  16. Old Italian money containing time makes a measure (5)
  17. True alloy, badly cast (5)
  18. A grog stirred up? That is trouble (5)
  19. Kept right inside sheath, primarily! (4)
  20. Senior taking in one form of address (3)

More: Toughie cryptic crosswords.

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