More skilful narrative's opening in Racine novel (7)

I believe the answer is:

cannier

'more skilful' is the definition.

'narrative's opening in racine novel' is the wordplay.
'opening' says to take the initial letters.
'in' is an insertion indicator.
'novel' indicates anagramming the letters.
The first letter of 'narratives' is 'n'.
'racine' is an anagram of 'canier'.
'n' inserted inside 'canier' is 'CANNIER'.

(Another definition for cannier that I've seen is " more cute".)

I've seen this clue in The Telegraph.

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