Criminal activity? Son with mother’s handbag possibly about right (5-3-4)
I believe the answer is:
smash-and-grab
'criminal' is the definition.
Both the answer and definition are adjectives.
Perhaps there's an association between them I don't understand?
'activity? son with mother's handbag possibly about right' is the wordplay.
I cannot really see how this works, but
'activity?' could be 'hand' (hand is a kind of activity) and 'hand' is found in the answer.
'son' could be 's' (genealogical abbreviation for son) and 's' is present in the answer.
'mother's' could be 'mas' (ma can mean mother) and 'mas' is found in the answer.
'about' could be 'a' (abbreviation in Chambers) and 'a' is located in the answer.
'right' could be 'r' (common abbreviation) and 'r' is present in the answer.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for smash-and-grab that I've seen before include "Type of raid" , "Describing a quick robbery from a shop" , "Style of robbery through a broken display window" , "Break-in (through a shop window)" , "Window-breaking robbery" .)