BOOKS . . . "THE CUNNING MAN"

At the beginning of this latest Robertson Davies novel, an elderly priest of the Anglican Church of Canada drops dead during Good Friday services. That scene is not explained until the end of "The Cunning Man" (Viking; 469 pages; $23.95). But TIME critic Paul Gray says the overriding appeal of works by "Canada's foremost living author" rarely rides on suspense. Instead, says Gray, the 81-year-old writer "entertains with an old-fashioned fictional mixture" of "keen social observations delivered with wit, intelligence and free-floating philosophical curiosity."