IT STARTED AS A SIMPLE FAVOR... Bert Mangum, an operative for the secretive Agency, is back on the Crossroads space station waiting for a new assignment when Detective Elina Stavros of the Crossroads P.D. asks him to do her a favor.

Could he help her figure out how the dangerous and illegal drug RDT is getting onto the station?

But the more they dig, the more they find, until they're facing a cluster-wide drug manufacturing and smuggling operation.

Worse, if they shut it down, Crossroads will go under and the economy of the cluster will go with it.

Mangum, Stavros, and Sam, with help from Gloria Dent and Claude Portnoy, have to find a solution before the economy of the cluster falls down around them.

. INTERVIEW WITH RICH WEYAND

What's the setup for 'The Favor'?

This book picks up the morning after 'Eve Of War' ends. Bert Mangum is on Crossroads station. Gloria Dent has gone to Wilbourne, and Mangum is with Elina Stavros, the beautiful police detective. She asks him if he can help track down how the dangerous drug RDT is getting onto the station.

I assume they find something more than a local pusher.

Yes. Spoilers are possible. But the investigation ends up spanning multiple star nations, drawing in Gloria Dent and Claude Portnoy as well as the chief executives of the six star nations of the local cluster. We have guns and assassins and thugs and evil masterminds and even nuclear weapons.

And sex. Lots of sex.

Well, yes. It's a spy novel. Dangerous men and dangerous women, adrenaline junkies who live their lives on the edge of danger and sudden death. Minor moral issues do not get in their way. All the same, as is my standard practice, the narrator leaves the room when things get steamy and comes back later. Sex is, by and large, not a spectator sport, and I find verbal descriptions even less interesting.

How did 'The Favor' write?

It started out slow. Espionage and mystery books always do for a pantser. I don't know anything more than our characters do as they dig into what's going on. I didn't know who the bad guy was until almost halfway into the book. That said, it wrote in forty-six calendar days, at about 1750 words a day. Fifteen days off in there to attend to chores that needed doing before the weather set in made it seem longer.

So you wrote 'The Favor' into the dark?

Oh, yes. And there are lots of twists and turns I could never have plotted out in advance. Some of them are even funny, if you have a certain kind of sense of humor. For instance, I had no idea that Gloria Dent has a wicked backhand with a cricket bat.

What about the cover?

Bert Mangum, Elina Stavros, Sam, and Jules. Another incredible piece of original art done for me by Luca Oleastri and Paola Giari of Rotwang Studio in Italy.

That's a fetching outfit she almost has on.

It's directly from the book. In the first chapter, actually.

And a puppy?

Yes. Spoilers are possible there, too. No further comment.

What's next for your writing?

I can see two more Agency books ahead in very broad form. So I will probably write those next before starting something else.