Love Scenes Get Out Of Hand

------------------------------- "Cheaters" by Eric Jerome Dickey Dutton, New York; $23.95 -------------------------------

By now, author Eric Jerome Dickey clearly has a devoted and deserved following. His earlier novels about the lives and loves of young, ambitious African Americans are a welcome addition to the popular easy-reading fiction genre with its nearly all-white casts of characters.

But before you rush out to buy Dickey's latest work for your friend's birthday, you'd better be confident that the recipient likes soft porn.

"Cheaters" is the story of a group of attractive young professionals who work hard, partake of intelligent conversation, care about friends, worry about their families . . . and sleep around like a hutch full of rabbits.

Now, granted the point of the novel is the many ways men and women can find to cheat on their partners in the name of love - so one would expect a certain amount of detail devoted to philandering. But Dickey's tendency to drop in steamy love scenes gets waaaay out of hand here. This book isn't juicy, it's sodden.

There is also a disconcerting dark and misogynistic tone, refreshingly absent from Dickey's earlier books, particularly the 1998 "Milk in My Coffee," about an interracial relationship. This time he has substituted sexism and sex for the disarming humor and compelling story lines used to good effect in "Milk" and the earlier "Friends and Lovers."

Given his prolific history, one can only hope that by next year, Dickey will have wrung out his prose and delivered the sort of enjoyable fiction his fans expect.