Turned up literary detective (not the old woman) — such writing is over the top (6)
I believe the answer is:
purple
'the top' is the definition.
The answer and definition can be both human attributes as well as being singular nouns.
Perhaps you can see an association between them that I can't see?
'turned up literary detective not the old woman such writing is' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite see how this works, but
'writing' could be 'r' (one of the traditional three R's of education) and 'r' is located in the answer.
'up' is present in the answer.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).
'over' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for purple that I've seen before include "Colour of the angry" , "Colour associated with imperial authority" , "Red and blue mixed" , "Mixture of red and blue" , "Red-blue mixture" .)