When regular crossword puzzles prove too easy, wordsmiths need a harder challenge. Diagramless crosswords offer a new trial of wits and intelligence for even the most devoted acrostic lover.

Imagine your typical crossword puzzle, with clue numbers and black squares separating each answer. Now remove the black squares. Not challenging enough for you? Remove the clue numbers as well. Now you’re looking at a blank grid. You don’t just have to solve the puzzle clues-you must figure out where the clue answers and black separation squares fit on the board. It’s a challenge unlike any other.

Diagramless Crosswords: Volume 3 is puzzle creator Richard Emmons’s third foray into the bewildering, mind-bending world of diagramless crosswords. Inside this collection, you’ll find seventy-five puzzles of varying difficulty. Simpler puzzle grids measure eleven by eleven squares, while the real brain strainers measure twenty-three by twenty-three.

For newcomers to the blank grids of diagramless crosswords, Emmons offers tips and tricks for solving the puzzles. A list of the starting squares for the first puzzle is included in the back to help jump-start your puzzle-solving adventure.

These are crossword puzzles at their purest and most challenging-these are diagramless crosswords.