Rare mad liar unfortunately in charge of ships (4,7)
I believe the answer is:
rear admiral
'charge of ships' is the definition.
The definition and answer can be both people as well as being singular nouns.
Perhaps you can see an association between them that I can't see?
'rare mad liar unfortunately' is the wordplay.
'unfortunately' is an anagram indicator (a bad or unfortunate spelling).
'rare'+'mad'+'liar'='raremadliar'
'raremadliar' is an anagram of 'REAR-ADMIRAL'.
'in' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for rear admiral that I've seen before include "Naval rank above commodore" , "Top brass" , "navy bigwig" , "Naval officer" .)