A lot of nasty crime done - by me? (9)
I believe the answer is:
miscreant
'me?' is the definition.
Both the answer and definition are singular nouns.
Maybe there's an association between them I don't understand?
'a lot of nasty crime done' is the wordplay.
'a lot of' means to remove the last letter (a lot of but not all of the word).
'done' is an anagram indicator.
'nasty' with its last letter removed is 'nast'.
'nast'+'crime'='nastcrime'
'nastcrime' is an anagram of 'MISCREANT'.
'by' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for miscreant that I've seen before include "Wretch" , "Wrongdoer" , "Naughty boy!" , "behaving unlawfully" , "culprit" .)