I wrote my first real murder story as a journalist for the Daytona Beach News Journal in 1980. It was about a body found in the woods. Later, the murder was linked to a serial killer who was later caught and executed for his crimes.

There is a means to every end. A root to any cause. Sometimes the root is more evil than any cause, though it's the cause that is usually most vilified.

Now I'm writing about contemporary Los Angeles from memory. My process was to hang out, observe, research what I was writing about, and almost immediately go back to my office and write those sections. So it was a very close transfer between observation and writing.

I've sold 11 of my books to Hollywood. There are all kinds of my books on shelves in Hollywood because the scripts didn't capture the characters.

I've been able to write at least one book a year for 20 years, and I don't think I would've had that kind of drive if I hadn't come out of the journalism business.

Action and adventure on land and sea-you can't ask for more. But Robert Kurson raises the ante in Pirate Hunters with an array of mystery and a fleet of colorful characters spanning four centuries. This is a great summer read!

I'm a disciple of Raymond Chandler, who said in his essays that there's a quality of redemption in anything that can be called art.