Homicide drowning novice in more rum (9)

I believe the answer is:

strangler

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'homicide' is the definition.
(thesaurus)

'novice in more rum' is the wordplay.
'novice' becomes 'l' (abbreviation for Learner e.g. on UK cars).
'in' is an insertion indicator.
'more rum' becomes 'stranger' (I've seen this before).
'l' placed inside 'stranger' is 'STRANGLER'.

'drowning' is the link.
This may not be correct. It may belong to another bit of the clue.

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(Other definitions for strangler that I've seen before include "criminal" , "Killer compressing the windpipe" , "he could take your breath away" , "Killer by choking" , "Murderer" .)

I've seen this clue in The Guardian.

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