Hypnosis...interesting...what was it like and what did you learn?

I've been hypnotized twice in my life.  One was a group hypnosis situation, where a substitute teacher hypnotized my high school art class, while the other was the more formal past-life session.  In both cases I felt as if I was kind of "playing" along, rather than actually being under, but then that may well be what it's supposed to feel like.  It's certainly much more dramatic in the book, although I like to think I keep it pretty realistic.

As for what I learned?  Not much.  I have a vivid imagination, so discovering that I was once a Scarlett O'Hara look-alike in the Civil War South was probably just me riffing on a potential new idea for a book...

Is there a message you'd like readers to take away from KILL HER AGAIN?

As Samuel Goldwyn once said, "If I wanted to send a message, I'd call Western Union."  My books are designed to give you a good time.  To me, they're like going to a really good movie that you don't want to end.  A thrill ride.  Those are the kinds of books I grew up reading -- books by William Goldman and Donald Westlake and Mickey Spillane and John MacDonald and M.E. Chaber and Walter Gibson and Richard Prather and Stephen King and Theodore Sturgeon -- the kind I love to write.  There's nothing more satisfying to me than a reader who emails me and says, "you kept me up all night."  That's exactly the effect I want my books to have on you.  So be warned...

You specialize in stand alone thrillers. Do you ever hear from readers who want to know what happens to your characters next?

Well, I think my first book, KISS HER GOODBYE, is probably the one that lends itself most to "what happens next" and I do get emails asking if there will ever be a sequel.  Stay tuned on that front. Both WHISPER IN THE DARK and KILL HER AGAIN have endings that pretty much wrap it all up, but I do find myself wondering what the characters might be up to, so you never know where that might lead.  Characters tend to live on in some weird netherworld of the unconscious, so one of these days I may have to speak to them...

What do your heroes have in common and what do your villains have in common?

Both my heroes and villains in all of the books seem to be emotionally crippled in some way.  I really think story is all about emotion.  Ingenuity in plotting is great, but without emotion you have nothing.

Some authors like to make their stories up as they go along, others swear by outlining. Where do you fit in?

I'm in the former camp.  I come up with a premise, think about it for a while, think about what characters might populate such an idea, then I let the characters kind of dictate the story to me.  It's a cause and effect thing.  Something happens and the hero reacts.  And how he reacts determines what happens next in the story.  I never really know what that might be until I'm actually writing it.  So when you're on page 25 of my book, I'm right there with you, wondering what happens next.  The most common comment I get is that my books are page turners  and while I certainly go to great lengths to make them that -- a lot of it has to do with the fact that I don't know what's coming next and can't wait to find out.

You've worked a lot of jobs in your life, including writing Saturday morning Spiderman cartoons. Rank your various professions according to whatever criteria you'd like - satisfaction, fun, money?

One of the greatest jobs I ever had was working as a janitor in a retirement complex.  I was in charge of maintaining the common area -- which was a huge mansion -- but I could finish my work in about two hours.  So the rest of the day I spent hidden up in an attic room, reading books from the mansion library.  It's nice to get paid to read books.

Writing for Spider-Man Unlimited, while kind of a thrill, was thankless work.  The first draft was always ours (working with my partner, Larry Brody), but after that was done we'd have to rewrite it a half dozen times to tailor it to the producers' demands, and there was a certain amount of dumbing down of the material that made the experience creatively frustrating.  The money, however, was great.

Tell us about your path to publication.

My path to publication was relatively painless.  My friends all hate me for this.  I was out of the animation business and decided to try my hand at writing a book -- something I'd always wanted to do -- and when it was done I got in contact with a former Hollywood agent and asked if she'd read it.  She did and loved it and sent it on to Scott Miller at Trident.  Scott loved it, too, and a couple months later I had a book deal with St. Martin's.  So I'm afraid I'm one of those jerks who sold his first book.  But I spent fifteen years pounding my head against the wall in Hollywood before that.  So I more than paid my dues.

What are you working on next?

I've just finished my fourth thriller for St. Martin's called DOWN AMONG THE DEAD MEN, which centers around the killing of five nuns in a house near Juarez, Mexico, and the disappearance of a young American tourist in Baja Norte.  A reporter and the tourist's sister come together to solve the mystery and I'm told it's another page turner.  Oh, and there's a pretty good twist that should also get the readers' hearts pumping.   That one comes out in July of 2010.

For more information on the author, go to http://www.robertgregorybrowne.com/

Contributing editor Julie Kramer's next book, MISSING MARK comes out July 14 from Doubleday. Publisher's Weekly calls it a "fun mystery thriller....slick sequel to 2008's STALKING SUSAN."  For more, go to www.juliekramerbooks.com