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Title: “Look for the Crook”
Prompt: This week’s contest answer is a type of thief.
Answer: PURSE SNATCHER
Correct entries: 516 overall, of which 474 were solo solves

When people ask me how I come up with meta ideas, I usually just explain that “wires cross in my brain” and the idea is born. This one was an example: I was rocking Ada to sleep one evening last week as usual, and as I looked down at her it struck me that I was cradling her head in the crook of my arm. Meta-wires crossed and I thought of a square pattern of four boxes in a grid, with ARM taking up three of them and whatever letter was useful occupying the fourth (the crook of the arm formed by the other three).

“Look for the crook” popped into my head soon after, and then the idea of looking for a type of crook (criminal) seemed appealing. Does any type of criminal have to do with the crook of the arm? Why yes — a PURSE SNATCHER, who yanks the purse off the arm’s crook. Whole thing took about 45 seconds after the initial wire crossing. So sometimes I’ll brainstorm for hours and nothing happens, and other times the whole idea will unfold without me actively doing much of anything. Such is meta-life.

So anyway: yeah, thirteen ARMs populated the grid at a 90-degree angle, then the letters in those 13 crooks spelled out the answer in order from top-to-bottom. See diagram above by Gridmaster J.

Amy Reynaldo says:

You can’t carry this one in the crook of your arm, but it may be innately theft-deterring. Click through for customer reviews!

https://www.nordstrom.com/s/bottega-veneta-kettlebell-travertine-stone-top-handle-bag/6455708

That can’t be real, right? Uh…

THIS WEEK’S INSTRUCTIONS:

This week’s contest answer is a well-known publication.

Solve well, and be not led astray by words intended to deceive.