In case you missed Monday's NYT Mini, you can find the answers here:

The NYT Mini is a quick and dirty version of the newspaper's larger and long-running crossword. Most days, there are between three and five clues in each direction on a five by five grid, but the puzzles are sometimes larger, especially on Saturdays.

Unlike its larger sibling, the NYT Mini crossword is free to play on the New York Times website or NYT Games app. However, you'll need an NYT Games subscription to access previous puzzles in the archives.

The NYT Mini is a fun daily distraction that usually takes no time at all. I try to beat the standard weekday grid in less than a minute. But sometimes I can't quite figure out one or two clues and need to reveal the answer.

5) "___ Copperhead," Barbara Kingsolver novel that won a 2023 Pulitzer - DEMON

This was a pretty hard puzzle today, I thought. It took me almost three minutes when the last few took me less than one. Lots of 4-5 letter words this time around and no 3s at all, which is rare. I got the phisher one wrong as I said BAIT not LINK, and I thought Suspicious of was WARY not ONTO, so that messed me up for a while. I also had to cheat and look up DEMON COPPERHEAD as I had genuinely never heard of that book before. Seems like an interesting read! How did you do today?