I remain very pleased with this grid, even after nearly three decades. There’s a lot going on, with nine fairly specific (five unavoidable) themewords, interacting with 12 with latent letters, which have a degree of positional limitation. There are quite a few shortish entries, and some ‘old friends’ (HA-HA, ETHE, INGE…), but somehow it all hangs together.
The ground bass was DSCH-DSCH-DSCH. DSCH was the musical monogram of Dmitri SHOSTAKOVICH (22a), but the letters also form the initials of the suits in a pack of cards (Themewords B). TREY, KING, JACK and ACE are all cards (Variations C).
ACROSS
1 STICKER; s ticker
12 PRELIM; miler p (all rev.)
13 AIA; a(r)ia
14 AARON; a + Nora (rev.)
15 INCEPTS; anag.
18 HA-HA; Ha(t)ha(way)
19 ETHE; cf. thee
20 DIAN; I in dan
25 BALL; b all
27 AMEN; a men
28 INGE; (s)inge(r)
30 ALIT; al(l) it
33 GUARANA; guaran(tor) a
36 RAZOR; (c)zar (rev.) +_ or
37 ORD; or d
38 CACHET; ache in c,t
39 SATES; a for I in sites
40 SEEKERS; ker(nel) in sees
DOWN
2 (S)TRAIT; St. RA it
3 CLOT(H); Cloth(o)
5 (S)EMI; Semi(tes)
6 RANSA(C)KER; ran sacker
7 C(H)ICANO; chican(e) 0
8 LA(D)E; lad E
9 UN(S)PARING; anag. + (h)aring
10 BATHE; b a the
11 SAS(H)AY; SA’s hay
16 S(C)HOLIAST; sch(m)o + I in last
23 TABAR(D)S; bar in tads
25 BA(D)GES; bad (a)ges
26 ALULA; palindrom
29 GRO(C)ER; re corg(i) (all rev.)
31 BRAE; bra(C)e
34 ROE; 0 in re
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