Picked up crook, one offering the best speed? (7)
I believe the answer is:
cheetah
'best speed?' is the definition.
Although both the answer and definition are singular nouns, I cannot understand how they can define each other.
'picked up crook one offering the' is the wordplay.
I cannot really understand how this works, but
'one' could be 'a' and 'a' is located in the answer.
an anagram of 'the' is 'eth' which is within the left over letters.
The remaining letters 'che' is a valid word which might be clued in a way I don't understand.
This may be the basis of clue (or it may be nonsense).
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for cheetah that I've seen before include "Swift-running cat" , "Fastest cat" , "Carnivorous predator" , "Large spotted wild cat, very fast" , "Swiftest mammal" .)