Books: The Earl on the Ledge

THE DOVE WITH THE BOUGH OF OLIVE (279 pp.)—Dunstan Thompson—Simon & Schuster ($3.75).

In the old days, the heroes and heroines of religious novels were "good" people who practiced what the parson preached. Nowadays, as in the novels of Graham Greene and Mauriac, the religious hero is more likely to be a fallen fellow who depends for salvation solely on the mercy of God. In his first novel, U.S. Poet Dunstan Thompson has tried to avoid both extremes.

Katherine, Marchioness of Diss, once Katie O'Higgins of Washington, D.C., is planning a dinner at...