Detective pursuing every character in former empire (5)
I believe the answer is:
aztec
'former empire' is the definition.
Although both the answer and definition are singular nouns, I cannot understand how one could define the other.
'detective pursuing every character' is the wordplay.
'detective' becomes 'tec' (tec is short for detective).
'pursuing' says to put letters next to each other.
'every character' becomes 'az' (every letter (character) from A to Z).
'tec' after 'az' is 'AZTEC'.
'in' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for aztec that I've seen before include "old American" , "Old person" , "Member of ancient Mexican tribe" , "Great Mexican civilisation" , "Irish lower house" .)