Karen Abbott is one of America's most popular historical investigators. She wrote about the prostitution trade of gilded age Chicago in Sin in the Second City and about Gypsy Rose Lee in American Rose. Her newest book is Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy: Four Women Undercover in the Civil War.

I last talked to Daniel Friedman about the novel Don't Ever Get Old, featuring the retired octogenarian Memphis police detective Baruch "Buck" Schatz. This time we talk about the second entry into the series, Don't Ever Look Back, which is published by Minotaur/St. Martins.

Scott Phillips stopped by last year to talk about his novel Rake, in which an amoral American soap opera actor becomes a star on French television and attempts to make a movie while dealing the shadiest sides of the Parisian wealthy. His new western novel, Hop Alley, sees the return of Bill Ogden, who was introduced in the novel Cottonwood. Ogden is a good-natured sociopath who skates through life with little thought to consequences in the American Wild West.

Sorry victims and perpetrators, but I don't have an interview ready to go for this week. I hope to have one for next week.

Hank Phillippi Ryan is an investigative reporter for WHDH-TV in Boston. She's the author of the Charlie McNally series of novels which started in 2007, and they've been nominated for several awards. In 2009, she won Agatha, Anthony, and Macavity awards for her short story "On the House." 2012 brings us her new book, The Other Woman, starring reporter Jane Ryland.

Nancie Clare offers up Gypsies, gunfire, and repercussions in this week's tale of true crime. She and Rip Georges are teaming up to create the tablet magazine called Noir. Check out their fundraising campaign on kickstarter.com.The campaign wraps up on October 5, 2012, so get after it.

The Big Interrogation this week is with Timothy Hallinan. Tim's previous installment in his Poke Rafferty books, The Queen of Patpong, was a finalist for Edgar and Macavity awards. SoHo Crime has just published the newest of this Bangkok-set series, The Fear Artist.

This week's Tale of True Crime comes from thriller novelist Mark Greaney. Mark is the author of The Gray Man Series, and co-authored Locked On with Tom Clancy.

Poet Bill Lavender recently published his memoir Memory Wing. It's an ambitious work, a book-length poem arranged in quatrains. Here, for mysterypod, he reads an excerpt recounting his early college years replete with drugs, theft, and books. Music is by Tom B. Alien.