Mini crossword No 169

Thanks to tpgrammar for inspiring another go at 'cryptic fiction'

Tons of fun, Fez. FOI: 3d (naturally). That & guessing 1d & 2d before I could parse them got me through the rest. Loved 4d, absolutely terrific work there. Thanks for a great solve.

Very impressive. I imagine you based the grid around 1a and 4d? 5a got me a start, after which I started to make steady progress. Some tricky parsing, but surprisingly little given the constraints.

Masterful 👏

Very well done! A coherent plot with clues I could solve -- what's not to like? 😀

Very nice! Hard to say what my perfect clue was, since the whole thing is one big surface, but I liked the construction of 1a. Tiny spoiler in comments

Riveting. I await chapter two (and I especially enjoyed 6a and 4d).