Rising mist round delta area by the River Don (9)
I believe the answer is:
godfather
'don' is the definition.
(I know that Godfather has the occupation don)
'rising mist round delta area by the river' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite understand how this works, but
'round' could be 'fat' (I've seen this in other clues) and 'fat' is present in the answer.
'delta' could be 'd' (phonetic alphabet: alpha, bravo, charlie etc.) and 'd' is present in the answer.
'river' could be 'r' (abbreviation) and 'r' is found within 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 godfather that I've seen before include "He's a sponsor at Baptism" , "He sponsors a child at baptism" , "leading exponent" , "Mafia boss" , "Mafia chief or spiritual parent" .)