Stiff examination of gold by Tim's sister? (7)
I believe the answer is:
autopsy
'stiff examination' is the definition.
(examination of a body or 'stiff')
'gold by tim's sister?' is the wordplay.
'gold' becomes 'Au' (Au is the chemical symbol for gold).
'by' is a charade indicator (letters next to each other).
'tim's sister?' becomes 'topsy' (I can't justify this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
'au'+'topsy'='AUTOPSY'
'of' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for autopsy that I've seen before include "An official post-mortem examination" , "A post-mortem examination of corpse" , "PM" , "Dissection of a body to determine the cause of death" , "final critical analysis" .)