The New York Times Crossword

By Victor Barocas

ACROSS

1 Book after II

Chronicles

5 Stone on a set

9 Heat almost to the

point of boiling

14 Bad person to

trust

15 Close at hand

16 Actress Shire of

“Rocky”

17 *Large container for cinnamon or coriander?

19 Sign up for, as a

contest

20 Good qualities

21 *Gist of a Dear

John letter?

23 Able is he and he

is Elba

25 Depend (on)

26 Number for John Tyler (or Alexander Hamilton)

28 Tiny matter?

30 Place back on the

market, say

34 Not yet up

36 Laundry unit

38 Pot starter

39 *Play

matchmaker?

42 Lose steam

43 Cookie in a Dairy

Queen Blizzard

44 Perfect

45 Seasonal workers

in red suits

47 Recovers some

yards? 49 Deal that protects company secrets, for short

50 Midmonth date

52 Boneless

steakhouse order

54 *Tinkling racket

on a windy day?

58 Jog the memory

of

61 Positive Instagram responses

62 Change a map of southern England? … or, when parsed differently, what you need to do to the answers to the starred clues

64 Unconcealed

65 Grp. that Qatar

left in 2019

66 Rapper Wyclef

67 Pick on, in a way

68 On deck

69 Analogy words

DOWN

1 Woman’s name that’s also the first four letters of a Central American country name

2 Closes, as a fly

3 Kellogg’s cereal

with a purple box

4 Followed a curved

path

5 Breaks off a

relationship

6 Lead-in to maid or

man

Edited by Will Shortz No. 0206

7 Viciously attack

8 Brink’s truck

feature

9 1980s TV role for

Brosnan

10 Game with Lollipop Woods and Gumdrop Mountains

11 Kind of sax

12 Lender’s security

13 Have the courage

18 Online financial

company

22 “Il Trovatore”

composer

24 Like some panels

and flares

26 Dust-ups

27 “___ Holmes” (streaming film about Sherlock’s sister)

29 Earthworm

hunters

31 Deal sweeteners

32 Stand in good ___

33 Automaker with a

Cybertruck

35 Kitchen counters?

37 Standoffish

40 Gave a shot, say

41 Designed with

passageways

46 “___ Fideles”

48 To the point

51 “Simple” nursery

rhyme character

53 Nontext component of a text

54 Form lumps

55 Bee complex

56 Retail giant whose first store opened in Älmhult, Sweden

57 “Uh-uh”

59 Lacking clutter

60 Foe of Mr. Bond

63 Cause trouble for