Gratifyingly, minor changes to the reported conditions for α-C-H oxygenation (use of MeCN as solvent; addition of NaCN as cyanide source instead of H 2 O) afforded 49% of the desired α-C-H cyanation product 1a after 24 h (Table , entry 1), using the reported FeCl 3 /2-picolinic acid (PA) catalyst system. Extending the reaction time to 48 h resulted in a small increase in yield (57%, entry 2). Increasing the amount of FeCl3 in the reaction mixture (20 mol % instead of 10 mol %) afforded a similar yield after 24 h (55%, entry 3), suggesting that slow formation of product may be an issue limiting yields. This may be caused either by slow catalyst turnover or by sluggish cyanation of a putative iminium intermediate (for a mechanistic hypothesis, see Scheme 6 below). In order to accelerate the reactivity, we tested KCN instead of NaCN as a more soluble cyanide source and were able to see a small increase in yield to 63% (entry 4). Excitingly, the use of 18-crown-6 as additive further increased the yield to synthetically useful levels (86%, entry 5). Combination of a higher FeCl 3 loading (15 mol %) and 18-crown-6 (entry 6) provided almost quantitative yields of α-C-H cyanated product 1a (94%).