MONDAY PUZZLE — To start our week, Tarun Krishnamurthy, a three-time New York Times Crossword constructor, brings us a fresh and fun puzzle with clever wordplay. The theme is simple to grasp, without being entirely intuitive, and the crosses with the themed entries are inventive.

The New York Times Games: Puzzle Mania! features an in-depth foreword by author Joel Fagliano alongside an assortment of Mini and Mega crosswords, sudoku, logic puzzles, trivia questions, and analog versions of digital games like Wordle, Connections, Spelling Bee, and more.