Shrewd girl in outskirts of Coventry (5)
I believe the answer is:
canny
'shrewd' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'girl in outskirts of coventry' is the wordplay.
'girl' becomes 'ann'.
'in' indicates putting letters inside.
'outskirts of' says to hollow out the word (remove centre letters).
'coventry' with its centre removed is 'cy'.
'ann' going into 'cy' is 'CANNY'.
(Other definitions for canny that I've seen before include "Fly" , "Astute" , "Shrewd like Scotsman" , "Shrewd, clever" , "Shrewd, knowing" .)