Hi!

First of all, if you didn't receive last week's newsletter, you can read it here: https://cluesbysam.com/s/newsletter/2026-09-28.html

There was an error in delivery of the previous newsletter, and many never received it. The reason was a misconfiguration on my part as I'm transitioning to another email service. Hopefully this one goes smoother.

But there might be some issues with the future ones too! Unfortunately there are several recipients on the list who never subscribed. This is due to people accidentally typing a wrong email address, or bots doing weird stuff. To those recipients, this mail will seem like spam, and they might tag it as such, making it more likely that the newsletter sent to you will also be picked up by an automated spam filter.

To mitigate the issue, currently you can only subscribe to this newsletter by creating an account, which also verifies that you own the email address. But this won't get rid of all the existing ones who shouldn't be subscribed. To fix this, I might soon request you to re-subscribe to the newsletter. So if you at some point realize you haven't received newsletters in a while, this cleanup might be the reason and you might have to re-subscribe. And if you're a subscriber but don't yet have an account, I recommend you create one now! It gives you access to some additional puzzles, and ensures you'll receive the newsletter in the future as well.

Alright, enough about emails, let's talk about puzzles!

Last week's Friday puzzle was fun, right? Only 15% had a perfect solve, mostly due to column A. I received several emails claiming there was an error, and it was discussed many times on Reddit as well. No, there was no error, but the same thing happens every time this trick is used: "All innocents above Uma are connected" is not the same thing as "All innocents in column A are connected". Uma can be a disconnected innocent, she doesn't need to be connected to the innocents above her!

After falling for this enough times, you'll grow a sixth sense to warn you about it. Next time you see a pattern like this, watch out!

Since I'm sharing tips, here's another one: Clues like "5 persons on the edges have a criminal above them" can be tricky to scan fast, right? But it gets easier if you think of it as a horseshoe shape. Look at everyone on the edges, and shift them up one step, and you'll get the area containing 5 criminals. Like this:

Persons on the edges:
####
#--#
#--#
#--#
####

Persons above persons on the edges:
#--#
#--#
#--#
####
----

Same works for all directions, naturally. It also works for "One teacher has a criminal to the right of them." Look at all the teachers, shift them to the right, and you get the area that should contain one criminal. I hope this makes sense!

Now back to the results. Here are the stats for last week. Seems like Sunday was slightly easier than Saturday, but otherwise a pretty stable week!
Top 1% / 10% / 50%, then % of perfect solves and % of solves with no hints.

Mon 2026-09-28 (Easy): 1m 11s / 1m 45s / 3m 17s / 43% / 87%
Tue 2026-09-29 (Medium): 1m 16s / 1m 59s / 4m 7s / 48% / 78%
Wed 2026-09-30 (Medium): 1m 54s / 2m 57s / 5m 50s / 40% / 74%
Thu 2026-10-01 (Tricky): 2m 14s / 3m 37s / 7m 9s / 38% / 70%
Fri 2026-10-02 (Tricky): 2m 35s / 4m 12s / 8m 12s / 15% / 66%
Sat 2026-10-03 (Hard): 3m 21s / 5m 39s / 10m 48s / 20% / 48%
Sun 2026-10-04 (Hard): 2m 48s / 5m 7s / 10m 29s / 27% / 50%

Here are the weekly bonus puzzles to get your week started:
#1 Medium - https://cluesbysam.com/archive/2af98397999b
#2 Tricky - https://cluesbysam.com/archive/96cffea036cb
#3 Hard - https://cluesbysam.com/archive/67ebe0c5a184

There were a lot of great community puzzles last week. I've given access to several new people recently and it has paid off! Here are some of the most recommended ones. The last one is my personal favourite! If you enjoy these, be sure to check out the community puzzle page for more. Start with the ones with the most thumbs-ups!
#1 Easy - https://cluesbysam.com/s/share/?puzzleId=a52d59-d9092ed229e20b94
#2 Tricky - https://cluesbysam.com/s/share/?puzzleId=22b521-aa2ac59c3789554f
#3 Tricky - https://cluesbysam.com/s/share/?puzzleId=ed0c6c-b270fc8dea262c8c
#4 Hard - https://cluesbysam.com/s/share/?puzzleId=f9fb73-6ea1888760dc096d

As usual, if you're craving for more, check out the puzzle packs (there'll be a new pack available before the end of the year) and the full daily archive.

Happy solving!

-Sam