DEAR AND GLORIOUS PHYSICIAN (572 pp.) Taylor Caldwell Doubleday ($3.95).
Perennially bestselling Novelist Taylor (This Side of Innocence) Caldwell has essayed a life of St. Luke which will suffocate most readers in its lavender logorrhea. Lucanus. as the author calls the Greek physician who wrote the third Gospel and the Acts, meets all the specifications for women's historical fiction. He is lithe, blond, radiantly handsome and invincible at fencing, foot races, discus-throwing and the standing broad jump. He is an accomplished linguist and, of course, a shrewd internist and master surgeon;...