Obstinate agent turning up with lines presented in book? (8)
I believe the answer is:
perverse
'presented in book?' is the definition.
The answer and definition are different parts of speech. However, past participle verbs and adjectives can occasionally mean the same thing.
'obstinate agent turning up with lines' is the wordplay.
'obstinate agent' becomes 'rep' (short for representative. I am not sure about the 'obstinate' bit.).
'turning up' says the letters should be written backwards.
'with' says to put letters next to each other.
'lines' becomes 'verse' (I've seen this before).
'rep' back-to-front is 'per'.
'per'+'verse'='PERVERSE'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for perverse that I've seen before include "Obstinately wrong-headed" , "'Wayward, peevish (8)'" , "Deliberately unreasonable" , "Deliberately departing from what is reasonable" , "Wrongly determined" .)