This Dark Road to Mercy

Cash's follow up to his bestselling debut novel, A Land More Kind Than Home, picks up as Easter Quillby and her younger sister reconnect with their deadbeat father, Wade. With help from Brady Weller, an ex-cop, Wade and the daughters are on the run from clich%C3%A9d bad man Pruitt, who on multiple occasions raises his sunglasses to deliver punch lines as he hunts Wade for stealing money from his gangster boss. The plot unfolds against a backdrop of Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa's race to break the season home run record%E2%80%94an all-too-obvious metaphor for the main story, which culminates in a bathroom confrontation at a baseball stadium where the two players meet. Most of Cash's characters lay flatly within the high drama of the plot. Brady's friend, the Black & Mild%E2%80%93smoking, rap-music-listening Roc, the novel's most notable character of color, delivers cringe-worthy lines like, "What up, playa?" and "Damn, son." Even fans of Cash's first novel may find the melodrama of his latest more of a quick fix than a memorable read. Agent: Nat Sobel, Sobel Weber Associates. (Feb.)