LAST WEEK’S RESULTS:

Title: “Gone Fishin'”
Prompt: This puzzle’s contest answer is an adjective describing a late, great crossword writer who would’ve turned 70 in a few weeks. Invoke his name to solve the meta!
Answer: WILY, found by 215 solvers, 133 of which were solo solves

Yet another Henry Hook tribute puzzle! I’ll stop now. Maybe…

Four 10-letter Acrosses were pretty themey looking, so let’s check them out:

17-A: [Lord’s home] = MANOR HOUSE
27-A: [Good times to take a shot] = KODAK MOMENTS
44-A: [United Nations role] = SPECIAL ENVOY
60-A: [She starred in “Doctor Detroit” with Dan Aykroyd, then married him] = DONNA DIXON

Now what? Answer: notice that one five-letter word in each entry can replace its middle letter with a J — a “hook,” as it were — to get another word:

MANOR –> MAJOR
KODAK –> KOJAK
ENVOY –> ENJOY
DIXON –> DIJON

Gotta be the right path. Now what? Answer: find a clue that can satisfy our new J-centered words. Like so:

52-A: [Great in importance] is WHOPPING, but could also clue “major”
62-A: [Classic cop show] = I SPY, but could also clue “Kojak”
40-A: [Derive pleasure from] = LIKE, but could also clue “enjoy”
57-A: [Mustard type] = YELLOW, but could also clue “Dijon”

The first letters of those spell out contest answer WILY, found by 215 solvers.

Golem says:

I spent SO MUCH TIME looking for the fish hidden in the grid!

I guess we might call that…a red herring?

CptnCodon points me to this 2001 New Yorker article about Henry and the ACPT:

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2002/03/04/the-riddler

And finally, Evan (Birnholz) describes the cruciverbal circle of life:

Some shameless pride on my part: Just last week I published the 500th Sunday crossword in the Post since I started writing puzzles for them in Dec. 2015, so it’s only fitting that I’m celebrating my streak of 500 MGWCC solves in a row today — and in a tribute puzzle to a guy that I know inspired you on your own meta journey!

The meta juggernaut is generationally unstoppable! Henry’s books also contained some early clear examples of metas.

Who’s ready for a Week 5? You are, I hope…

THIS WEEK’S INSTRUCTIONS:

This puzzle’s contest answer is a six-letter word.

Good luck!
–Matt