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Toughie No. 50 — cryptic crossword

A toughie puzzle: 44 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. Present mount, one never to be looked in the mouth (4,5)
  2. Second, black and white, was made out (5)
  3. New form of a rag man! (7)
  4. Top man, unsettled, hard inside — nothing but an illusion (7)
  5. Figure of speech, one dropped, produces a grin (5)
  6. Slack finishes, all that's left to tie up! (5,4)
  7. Bennett, say, in the balance (4)
  8. Mods rioting about king in student rooms (5)
  9. One married and filled with wonder (4)
  10. Sly look back at the dance (4)
  11. Ribbon, by the sound of it, is a girl's young man (4)
  12. Search where the honey is (4)
  13. Half of a clean pair, hidden in crisp icing (4)
  14. Bats flying back for a go (4)
  15. Soothsayer from a grand ancient city (5)
  16. Nothing new buried in the house detective's report (4)
  17. Whinny from bishop and our friend across the fence (9)
  18. Fibre found in any longer stocking (5)
  19. Trendy and certain, heading for home (7)
  20. Amusers upset by one giving a rub-down (7)
  21. North-east kiss in America makes the connection (5)
  22. Doctor's verdicts on a disturbed, agonised son (9)

Down

  1. Drags out those who have left college (5)
  2. Rank taking in tabloid is easily broken (7)
  3. Hospital by Shakespeare's forest is set (6)
  4. Marble sculpted for monarch, a climbing rose (7)
  5. Old flame, quiet, over a rich vein — about to blow up (7)
  6. Rock, right, for the chap up on the roof (6)
  7. Fashionable present, perhaps, is extreme (7)
  8. Wet firework? A let-down! (4,5)
  9. Throat lies at the centre of asthma warning (3)
  10. Woman with a listening device? Something spotted in America (7)
  11. Note the sun (3)
  12. My bases reorganised as a mission abroad (7)
  13. Canonises the wrong one — a rise to heaven (9)
  14. Letter drop in the States: armour on, and fight! (7)
  15. Coach going back for a replacement (3)
  16. Parking by the river, the peculiar editor was urged on (7)
  17. Maraca shaken round a bishop — cry of surprise in Spain (7)
  18. Relates, interrupted by hesitation, to the bank's cashiers (7)
  19. Leaders of a dreadful outcry make a fuss (3)
  20. Slough redeveloped for grave-robbers (6)
  21. Union taking in society produces harmony (6)
  22. Standards of conquerors, dropping an article (5)

More: Toughie cryptic crosswords.

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