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All fine and straightforward but spent the last half hour with no success on 15a. Hints welcome !

It'a a modern novel - one letter for 'about', 4 letters for 'brash' then a mythological strongman :)
I found this harder than usual. Is it just me or is Everyman getting harder?

I found this difficult. 10 was LOI, 15 just before that. Both involved GK I don't possess; had to resort to Google to confirm 15's solution and parse the first 5 letters of 10. 10 was a nice clue, though, so I'll call it COD. FOI was 13.
I'm a relative newcomer to Everyman and can't speak to trends. But quite a few comments to 225's Everyman posts have recently mentioned increased difficulty.

Since I got 1a straight away, I thought this was going to be a breeze, but I hit few road blocks. I'm still not sure of the parsing of 7d. I assume that 25a is all about transatlantic misunderstandings unless I have got it completely wrong.

I had a lot of trouble parsing 7, so this may be wrong, but I see it as a word for "that may be seen" with a letter indicating "times" removed.

I'll have to think about it. I usually can't choose CODs, but I quite liked 6d and 16d for their simplicity. However, I think 18d must be one of the most tortuous clues I've seen in a long time.

couldn't sleep so, in the absence of brendan ... I'm sure you're right about 7, geeker. 25a is v simple, rainman - the word goes naturally with chest in one sense and underneath it in another. I had never heard of that definition of the last three letters of 6, so my vocab enriched. think if I see 3 clued like that again, I shall have an attack ... 15 is a very good novel - made into an unsuccessful film

oh, and we are treated to three rhymes this week, and I am wondering whether the half-rhymes in 6,19, 25 and 26 are intentional. Certainly closer than the assonance implied in 12, where "perhaps" is doing a great deal of work ... on the subject of difficulty, in the old days Everyman used to be doable in 12-15 minutes. Then about 18 months ago there was a series of very difficult ones, accompanied by a number of complaints on this site and solvers swearing they would never attempt another. Then it seems as if another setter took over who creates moderately puzzling puzzles, about 20-minute solves ... with rhymes.

Thanks, timb. Your explanation allowed me to complete the puzzle. Never heard of this novel before although I'm moderately bookish.

Good day all. Prospero's 20 minutes...! If I manage under an hour I'm chuffed. These all dropped in today though cannot really parse a few of them. No clues stood out for me but I'll opt for 19a as COD as I have a noisy rookery nearby that wakes me up to enable me to tackle everyman early in the day. Agree with comments on 18d and 3d. Perhaps a few too many anagrams today.