̶If you’re ready for an extrahard, oldtime challenge, have at it!” Will Shortz
From the creator and publisher behind the viral sensation Cain's Jawbone: A Very Novel Mystery, is a collection of 112 difficult cryptic crossword puzzles.
Before Edward Powys Mathers wrote the world's most fiendishly difficult literary puzzle, he was a cryptic crossword creator. Under his pseudonym "Torquemada", his puzzles would taunt readers for days. He created his first cryptic crossword puzzle in 1924 and went on to set them for the Saturday Westminster and the Observer for the next 15 years. His true identity was only revealed when he died in 1939.
As well as earning the reputation for setting the world's toughest crosswords, Torquemada or 'Torq' as he was often referred to was also delightfully creative: with many puzzles written in perfectly constructed verse, or delivered as mininarratives to their solvers. There's even a version where the clues are knockkno