THE MYSTERY OF MCGUFFIN MANOR

I loved crafting an Agatha Christie-style whodunit. A detective summoned to a lavish manor. Characters spanning the class divide (confined to their rooms, like many of us these days). And a priceless McGuffin, literally at the center of it all.

I loved making the grid symmetrical, with rooms arranged like a Clue board. (The diamond is hidden in a diamond-shaped room, in a diamond-shaped floor plan. The grid itself was a clue!)

And I love pushing the envelope of what a crossword can do! I'm grateful to Will for supporting it. I hope you enjoyed the journey.

My original version was more difficult: ELLEN, MINNIE, TIKI, etc. were clued normally — with no indication that they figured into the story. The solver needed to discover the names hidden in the rooms, unlocking the rest of the mystery. (I kept other first names out of the grid — a surprisingly challenging restriction!) But after extensive testing, Will and his team decided to indicate the suspects more overtly.

This puzzle took a hamlet: Mike Selinker, Alison Muratore, the whole Chaikin family, Debbie Goldstein, Jenny Gutbezahl, Rick Rubenstein, Sandor Weisz, and Dave Shukan all provided crucial feedback. And as always, the guidance of my crossword sensei Tyler Hinman was invaluable.

If you enjoyed this, please visit Puzzle Bouquet — our Mother's Day puzzle spectacular! We're raising $10,000 for safe maternity care for low-income moms in quarantine worldwide. Download our beautiful puzzle suite dedicated to moms, then hit Donate — and change the world.

Confused? Go read the notepad. I'll wait.

Still confused? Okay. Take a deep breath ...

1. Re-read the notepad. Pay attention to the professions. Note that there's a cook, a driver, and a carpenter.
2. APTLY NAMED CELEBRITY? Like TIM cook, MINNIE driver, and KAREN carpenter? A-ha! What a cool idea, setting up a mystery where it turns out the typical players were celebs!
3. Who is GERARD Butler, you say? And TIKI Barber? I'm thankful for TIKIpedia. Er, Wikipedia.
4. The APPLE SWEATSHIRT dropped at the scene of the crime? That belonged to TIM Cook, the CEO of Apple. He's quarantined into the east room, at 65-Across.
5. His admission tells us that the diamond is hidden in the room to the west of where he is; the central room.
6. MCGUFFIN can be seen in a diamond shape around the central black cross. (Start at 9 o'clock and read clockwise.) Therefore, the MCGUFFIN diamond has been located.

Whew!

I loved the idea behind this, but the execution had several issues:

• MCGUFFIN refers to a plot device that isn't important in itself. Seeing it as the end goal created a dissonance. Why not name the diamond something else, a random proper name that wouldn't confuse the issue?
• There's too much in the notepad. How many solvers will TL;DR it? I'm guessing a lot, and without that information, the puzzle makes no sense.
• TIM Cook is in the east room at 65-Across, yet he speaks at 102-Across? He's a ventriloquist?
• It's not much of a mystery. What burglar drops his distinctive sweatshirt at the scene of the crime, then immediately admits guilt? Wait ... is this some sort of Apple publicity stunt? J'accuse, TIM!

Overall, I appreciated the audacity and the attempt to do something completely different. I might have loved it, if the notepad had been scrapped and a fuller, more engaging mystery had been presented in short-story format on a full page before the grid. It's a shame that Will Shortz can't do things like that often (he only gets single page for the crossword, and you'd have to substitute in another puzzle for syndication partners).

The Sunday NYT crossword would greatly benefit from grand new experiments, taking full advantage of the Sunday Magazine's color spreads. I'd love to see the NYT's top brass give Will more leeway in testing out mold-breaking, innovative puzzles that might just blow people's minds.

[ Here's the official mystery explanation from the NYT. ]