Animal tales by maverick (7)
I believe the answer is:
beastly
'animal' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'tales by maverick' is the wordplay.
'maverick' indicates anagramming the letters.
'tales'+'by'='talesby'
'talesby' with letters rearranged gives 'BEASTLY'.
(Other definitions for beastly that I've seen before include "Bestial" , "Brutal - foul" , "Brutish" , "Very unpleasant" , "Horrid" .)