Bones set crookedly, including cracked head and most near the knuckle (9)

'most near the knuckle' is the definition.
I can't judge whether this defines the answer.

'bones set crookedly including cracked head' is the wordplay.
'set' indicates an anagram (instruction to set the letters).
'crookedly' becomes 'est' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'including' is an insertion indicator.
'head' indicates taking the first letters.
The initial letter of 'cracked' is 'c'.
'bones' with letters rearranged gives '[bones]'.
'[bones]'+'est'='obsenest'
'obsenest' enclosing 'c' is 'OBSCENEST'.

'and' is the link.

Can you help me to learn more?