New York Times, Tuesday, December 18, 2018

If you identify as LGBT and/or POC and/or non-male, and you're looking to get into crossword constructing, I'd be thrilled to offer whatever mentorship and wisdom I can to help you get your puzzles published. Contact me on Instagram: @rosstrudeau

Jeff is the master of giving quick lessons to aspiring constructors, so I'll use this note to try to do the same. Here's a breakdown of what I think makes this theme set "tight" and "snappy."

Revealer: FASHION POLICE

Is it a lively phrase? I think so. Thanks, mom!

Can it be reinterpreted or re-parsed to make new meaning? Yes. And I love revealers that reverse this convention, i.e., they take a non-literal colloquialism and turn it more literal.

Is this new meaning unexpected and/or humorous? I think so. I'm imagining the chief chastising her sergeants for not wearing the right clothes on their beat. (My original clue suggested FASHION POLICE were people who determine the theme answers, rather than the wearers.)

Theme Answers: DUST JACKET, TRAILBLAZER, HOLDING TANK, FOLLOW SUIT

Are they lively phrases? I think so. FOLLOW SUIT is kind of meh. But there are uncommon letters (J, Z), which is a bonus.

Are they ALL two-word phrases? Check.

Can the second word in ALL phrases denote a piece of clothing? Check.

Do ALL phrases regularly denote something that is not a piece of clothing? Check.

Do ALL of the first words describe common POLICE activities? Police FOLLOW suspects, they HOLD perps, they DUST for prints, and they look for TRAILs of clues. (You'll notice that some of these activities are nouns and some are verbs. An even tighter theme set would use only one or the other.)

Ha, the FASHION POLICE imagined as fabulous clothing for criminal investigations! HOLDING TANK as a tank-top worn by a "Village People" style cop? I love it.

I hitched on the grammar of the others, though — the ING of HOLDING TANK makes it perfect. Not so much for DUST JACKET. If the real-life phrase had been DUSTING JACKET, it'd have been equally perfect. But alas, books are covered by DUST JACKETs, no ING.

FOLLOW SUIT … because I think about contract bridge a ridiculous amount of time, the phrase was immediately apparent to me. I'm not sure what percentage of solvers will understand this base phrase, but I'm almost positive that it's lower than for HOLDING TANK or TRAILBLAZER.

In the end, though, I put my grammatical qualms aside, because the notion of cops going down the runway as they run in baddies is so much fun.

Given that this is a Tuesday theme, fairly easy to understand, I'd have preferred going up to 76 or even 78 words. Ross's 74-word grid is wide-open enough that he was bound to need some trade-offs to make it work. In general, I think educated solvers ought to at least recognize ALONZO Mourning, Chrissy TEIGEN, the RARITAN river. And maybe they should be able to figure out that a sub could experience EMERSION (out of the RARITAN)?

But so much in one grid might create some solving frustration. Along with AARONS, ATA, ALEE … I might have chosen to break up the SW and NE corners a bit.

I did so much appreciate TRUE SELF, BAD OMEN, D STUDENTS, and COCKATOO, though. Along with a hilarious clue for RODE UP — referencing underwear making its way north — there was a lot to enjoy.