Rough Riders

The sprawling action of Stella’s disappointing sequel to 2001’s Eddie’s World alternates between west and east. In Billings, Mont., U.S. Air Force Col. Robert Schmidt intends to do something about his wife’s infidelity—by hiring Washington Stewart, who’s been in the government’s witness protection program in North Dakota, to kill her in exchange for some uncut heroin that a combat pilot brought in from Afghanistan a few months earlier. Stewart, who isn’t interested in the drugs, wants to use Schmidt to escape the country. Meanwhile, in New York City, retired NYPD homicide cop Alex Pavlik, now a PI, looks into a murder attempt on mobster Eddie Senta, the protagonist of Eddie’s World, at the request of Senta’s wife. No one will be surprised when the two story lines overlap, or when the characters fail to act as intelligently as they should. Agent: Svetlana Pironko, Author Rights Agency. (July)