Detective story — cryptically, read end? (1,5,2,7)
I believe the answer is:
a study in scarlet
'detective story cryptically' is the definition.
I know nothing about this answer so I cannot tell whether it can be defined by this definition.
'read end?' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite understand how this works, but
'read' could be 'study' (synonyms) and 'study' is located in the answer.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for a study in scarlet that I've seen before include "detective story?" , "mystery" , "Book" , "novel" , "a brilliantly-coloured room" .)