Phrase repeated by a novel crime fighter (7)
I believe the answer is:
sheriff
'a novel crime fighter' 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 don't see?
'phrase repeated by' is the wordplay.
'phrase' becomes 'riff' (riff is a kind of phrase).
'repeated' becomes 'she' (I can't justify this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
'by' is a charade indicator (letters next to each other).
'riff' after 'she' is 'SHERIFF'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for sheriff that I've seen before include "Crown's county officer" , "Scots judge" , "Scottish judge" , "US law-enforcement officer" , "Chief officer of the Crown in a county" .)