I took about 10 minutes over this fine puzzle, whose excellence lies not in obscure vocab or arcane general knowledge (pace the tough botanical clue at 9ac), but in really fine cryptic crafting, with many super surfaces tightly married to cleverly misleading wordplay. Loads and loads of really admirable clues, more than I want to enumerate, so I’ll just give my Clue of the Day award to the commendably concise cryptic definition at 1dn – shades of the great Rufus’s cluing, perhaps? But honestly there were at least a dozen clues in contention for this award. Thanks setter, very nicely done!
Gosh it’s funny putting the finishing touches to this blog at 7pm instead of 1 in the morning… what am I going to do with the rest of the hours before bedtime? More crosswords, I expect!
ACROSS
1 To fit into line‘s quite dodgy, with only one following (7)
JUSTIFY – JUST IF{f}Y [quite | dodgy, “with only one (F for) following”]
5 Defender of faith originally to withdraw (4,3)
BACK OFF – BACK OF F [defender | of | F{aith}]
9 Grouse shot circling bush, ornamental shrub (7,4)
GUELDER ROSE – (GROUSE*) [“shot”] circling ELDER [bush]
10 Are demanding courses for auditors (3)
TAX – homophone of TACKS [courses]
11 Secure batting that bags a century (6)
ATTACH – (THAT*) [“batting”] “bags” A C [a | century]
12 Suppose overthrow of French king is badly done? (8)
INFERIOR – INFER [suppose] + reversed ROI [French king]
14 Caught gamebird leaving quiet region where slugs collected? (9,4)
CARTRIDGE BELT – C {p}ARTRIDGE BELT [caught | gamebird “leaving (P for) quiet” | region]
17 Drawing water from close current, eluding guards (13)
DEHUMIDIFYING – HUMID I [close | current], DEFYING [eluding] “guards”
21 Association gone from SW, presumably (8)
OVERTONE – if something has “gone from SW”, it is presumably now OVER TO NE.
23 Publication that listeners may turn down (6)
VOLUME – double def
25 Greek character from western half of island (3)
RHO – RHO{des}
26 Maybe two or three more dead following charge (5,6)
PRIME NUMBER – NUMBER [more dead] following PRIME [charge]
27 Some among relatives of mixed blood (7)
MONGREL – hidden in {a}MONG REL{atives}
28 Traditional industry the queen’s invested in arousing suspicion (7)
FISHERY – ER [the queen] is “invested” in FISHY [arousing suspicion]
DOWN
1 Picture breaking up (6)
JIGSAW – quality cryptic def
2 Doubting Thomas infected, having caught cold (7)
SCEPTIC – SEPTIC [infected], having “caught” C [cold]
3 Unseemly behaviour towards end of year over drink? (9)
INDECORUM – IN_DEC O RUM [towards end of year | over | rum]
4 See attempt to get out at the Oval (4)
YORK – double def. Nice to, er, see a see that isn’t Ely.
5 Annoyed, as toast is unavailable (7,3)
BROWNED OFF – BROWNED [as toast is] + OFF [unavailable]
6 Slightly raise bottom of fawn fabric(5)
CREPE – take CREEP [fawn], and raise its bottom (letter) one place higher
7 Unlikely faction blossoming at first (7)
OUTSIDE – SIDE [faction], OUT [blossoming] at first
8 Pays for introducing unlimited extra measures (8)
FOXTROTS – FOOTS [pays for] “introducing” {e}XTR{a}
13 Official introductory letter client read out (10)
CREDENTIAL – (CLIENT READ*) [“out”]
15 One record after another oddly omitted ruler’s conclusions (9)
EPILOGUES – I LOG [one | record] after EP [another (record)] + {r}U{l}E{r}
16 500 in complex image or Chinese character (8)
IDEOGRAM – D [500] in (IMAGE OR*) [“complex”]
18 Who led row on failing to start dance? (7)
HOEDOWN – {w}HO {l}ED {r}OW {o}N
19 Dog’s last to find out about bitch (7)
GRUMBLE – {do}G + RUMBLE [to find out about]
20 Tight times just round the corner (6)
NEARBY – NEAR BY [tight | times]
22 Lighter touch leads to easier relationships (5)
TAPER – TAP [touch] + E{asier} R{elationships}
24 Audibly challenged foreign agent casing area to north
DEAF – FED [foreign agent] “casing” A [area], reversed (south to north)
Do these penny drop moments release endorphins?
47 minutes.