A criminal besetting men within hour is loathsome (9)
I believe the answer is:
abhorrent
'loathsome' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'a criminal besetting men within hour' is the wordplay.
I cannot really understand how this works, but
'a' is found in the answer.
'men' could be 'or' (I've seen this in other clues) and 'or' is located in the answer.
'hour' could be 'hr' ('hr' can be a synonym of 'hour') and 'hr' is present in the remaining letters.
'criminal' could be 'bent' (I've seen this before) and 'bent' is located in the leftover letters.
This accounts for all the letters.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
'is' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for abhorrent that I've seen before include "Hated" , "Ugly" , "noisome" , "Detestable, loathsome" , "Repulsive" .)