This is inspired by the Cryptic Family Reunion series by Jeremy Dover.
There are ten cryptic clues below, and the answers to all of them follow a single theme. The definition of each clue has also been replaced by a given name.
The enumeration of each clue is left out, but the clues are arranged such that their clue answers are arranged by increasing word length. (If two or more clue answers have the same word length, those clue answers are also arranged alphabetically.)
Your task is to figure out the answer to each cryptic clue, the theme all clue answers follow, and the relevance of the given names.
- Louis, in the midst of tagging along with Ray
- Alessandro's measure of space-time
- "Hold on– it leaves me out of the picture, James!"
- Michael's in front of bulletin, at a great distance
- Joseph's shy neighbor is bothered, letting out sigh; job not started
- Heinrich and that particular girl, at first, terrified Zachary
- Joseph gets slightly upset and leaves James
- Wilhelm, some other people, and I drink, but without drug
- Novel, and essentially holy books, about Isaac
- On Twitter, repost someone else's photo (perhaps having some sort of filter on it) featuring Rolf