Steven

My insta-thought when I saw "Petty Person?" was HEARTBREAKER, but alas, one letter too long. RIP Tom. And clue of the day for me was "Ring bearer?" which took me several seconds of "wha?" after the solve before the light dawned on me. Nicely done!

Fab. Bravo for your NYT debut. I had never heard of PADIDDLE which hampered me in the northwest corner, and I knew enough to work out that "monodon monoceros" had to be a one-horned something but got stuck on UNICORNS. I hadn't thought about sea creatures! The dumb blonde quote made me think immediately of Madonna, and since it didn't fit I thought maybe she was going for her real name. I cheated to look it up and find out her actual name IS Madonna (Madonna Louise Ciccone), so in TIL she joins Prince as "rock stars with perfect stage names that are improbably not made up." Things you learn doing a crossword.

I hated this puzzle until I read the explanation, then I was in awe of it. Wow.

Happy birthday! Thanks for that. The northwest part stumped me until "Homo sapiens e.g." Just popped into my head, then everything else fell into place. Bravo.

That was just *fab.* Bravo David Kwong!

Bravo on your debut, Alex! The "A" in AONE was my last entry--I was totally stumped. I knew about Holmes's cocaine fetish but I kept trying to think of some kind of acid that could have been used in a killing. And I had no idea that "PLUM" might have been spelled "PLUMB" for that entry, so on that count ignorance was bliss!