I hate you Frank Longo

I love Sudoku. It is lots of fun for me. I actually use it as a way to relax and get my brain to "turn off" before going to bed. I have been using the Frank Longo Martial Arts series of books. I started about 4 years ago and have casually worked my way up to Black Belt. By the end of that book I was averaging about 5 min per puzzle. I was spectacularly pleased with myself because here was something that I could mentally best AoD at.

I went down to my local Barnes & Noble to purchase a new Sudoku book when I noticed the Second Degree Black Belt version of the Frank Longo Sudoku books. I naturally assumed that this would be the same type of puzzles, and that second degree meant volume 2 and wasn't referencing degree of difficulty. Boy was I wrong. I started about 8 of the puzzles and it was about a week before I finally solved 1 of them. It is not beyond the realm of possibility now for me to sit in bed for a half hour just working on one puzzle. I am going on week 4 now and I have successfully completed 5 puzzles out of 15 started. My best record to date has been 15 min to solve one puzzle. If anybody knows any short cuts I would love to hear them.