I appreciate the local coverage provided by the Kirkland Reporter, and I occasionally have enough time to tackle the puzzles as well. I was pleased to see that the crossword and Sudoku puzzles got a little more space this week, with the answers where they should be – on a separate page.

On the other hand, I was disappointed once I started solving the puzzles. The Sudoku took only a few minutes, revealing that the otherwise obscure “difficulty level 10” must be on a scale from one to a hundred. The crossword offered more of a challenge, but it came with a handful of laughably unsubtle clues, including gems like “ball… used in playing tennis” as a hint for “tennis ball” and “power pylon” as a hint for “pylon.” Since the puzzles weren’t attributed, I can only guess that they came from local authors rather than the usual national syndicates. I’m happy to see puzzles from new sources, but please, keep the quality up!

Eric Stollnitz, Kirkland