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Katie O'Connor: Hi, listeners. I'm Audible editor, Katie O'Connor, and today, I'm excited to be speaking with global bestselling author Dan Brown about his latest thriller in the Robert Langdon series, The Secret of Secrets. Welcome, Dan.

Dan Brown: Thank you. Thanks for having me.

KO: So, it has been eight years—eight long years, some might say—since listeners have seen renowned professor and symbologist Robert Langdon. I'm sure you have been working on this book for a few years at least, but what has it been like for you to step back into this world after your longest stretch away?

DB: Well, I mean, above all, it's been a whole lot of fun. I love to learn, and I chose a really tough topic—which is why it took eight years. There was a time about halfway into it where I thought, "Why did I want to write about human consciousness again?" It's a very ephemeral, ethereal topic. Scientists can't even really agree on what it is. So for me to try to write a thriller based on that, it sometimes felt like I was trying to get my arms around smoke. You know, just sort of trying to hug a cloud almost. It just kept slipping away. It took me a while to figure out how to write an urgent, relevant thriller in the world of human consciousness. And I finally figured out how to do it; it just took a while.

KO: Well, you pulled it off. [laughs] And alongside Robert, we also see the return of noetic scientist Katherine Solomon, whom we first met in The Lost Symbol. And Robert typically has, you know, a brilliant woman by his side throughout your mysteries. But this is the first time that we have seen a character reappear like this. Did you always want to bring Katherine back or, if not, when and why did you make that choice?

DB: So, Katherine came back for two reasons, really. When I wrote The Lost Symbol, she was a primary character but ancillary, really. And her research was not critical to the plot. But as I started to learn more about noetic science, I knew that consciousness and noetic science had a... It was book-worthy. It was a huge topic. I knew I wanted to write about it. I didn't know how to do it. So, I went and wrote two other books in the meantime as I continued to learn about consciousness. So that's one reason she's back in the plot is because she is a specialist in the field I'm writing about.

And the other reason is that if you've read my books, you know that Robert Langdon is very lucky when it comes to women. He, in every book, sort of meets a beautiful, brilliant woman who happens to know exactly what he needs them to know. Uh, he's really lucky that way. I wanted to do something different in this book. I wanted him to be in love. The tricky thing about that is you really want to see the romance of a relationship at the beginning, the exciting part, the butterflies, the not-quite-being-sure part, but you also want a meaningful, meaty relationship.

"I wanted to do something different in this book. I wanted him to be in love."

So, I decided, conveniently, to bring back Katherine because they have been lifelong friends and have kind of circled around each other for decades—never quite finding the right moment of platonic friendship that has turned romantic. And that's sort of a fun dynamic for readers to experience, that they get to see Langdon in a much different viewpoint and with a whole lot to lose.

KO: Yes, you definitely upped the stakes in various ways. And to your point, it was nice to see him happy in a romantic relationship as well. You've mentioned Katherine is a noetic scientist—that is the heart of your story here. Her research is the heart of it, with the big overarching question being: Can consciousness survive after death? So was that your originating idea for this novel or was it something else?

DB: I mean, it certainly was part of it. Uh, my mom passed away right as I started this novel.

KO: Mmm, I'm sorry.

DB: There was some of that. Thank you. There was some wanting to understand what that next phase is. You know, there's part of us that cannot fathom that all of our hopes and dreams simply evaporate in the moment of death. And yet, I've always been a skeptic of anything that has to do with life after death. I sort of figured death is the end, full stop, total blackness. It’s like going to sleep and never waking up—that sort of feel. And I've got to say, you know, I started this in a very skeptical place—as does Langdon at the beginning of the book—and over the course of the seven or eight years it took to write this book, I've come out the other side with my eyes wide open in a much different frame of mind.

I happen to believe, as do a whole lot of physicists, noetic scientists, that we are on the cusp of a major sea change with how we think about what our minds do, how they work. And, of course, you find out all of this in the novel. It's just a really exciting time to be studying the human mind and the, you know, the outlook is quite positive and quite optimistic. It was just a fun book to write. I gotta say, I no longer fear death. I'm in no hurry, but from everything I've researched, I'm very, very calm about the whole thing.

KO: That's an amazing outcome. I was going to ask you later, sort of, how has your writing impacted your spiritual journey in that way because there is so much at the intersection of religion and science in your books. It's really interesting to hear that the research for The Secret of Secrets kind of brought you to that moment.

DB: It did. And it's kind of funny because my journey—from skepticism to really a believer in this new model of consciousness—really mirrors Langdon's journey. I mean, he does it over the course of 24 hours; it took me eight years [laughs]. But he's always been a little faster than I am.

KO: I did want to ask you about that tight timeline that you're known for and that we do experience in The Secret of Secrets. You said you wanted to figure out how to create a sense of urgency around this idea of consciousness: Is that constricting to you at all when you finally do sit down to write and put it all together that, like, "Okay, this all needs to happen in 24 to 48 hours." Or does it just help propel you forward that, you know, "This is the driving action, and this is creating suspense for me?"

DB: Yeah. It's really both. I mean, it's absolutely constricting, but constriction is tension.

KO: Mm-hmm.

DB: So, it makes it harder to write, but it makes it more fun to read, if that makes any sense [laughs]. I really like to challenge myself as a writer. This book is, by far, the most intricately plotted book I've ever, ever attempted. It's got more characters. It actually happens in under 24 hours. There were a lot of high bars that I set and, you know, that's another reason that it took eight years. And I've always felt my job is to respect the reader's intelligence and the reader's time. And that means putting on the page only what the reader needs and taking everything else out. And it means deleting a lot of material that you look at and you go like, "That's pretty good." I mean, that's really interesting; that's really fun. But the reality is it doesn't serve this story. The reader can get by without knowing it. And so let me take it out.

KO: Yeah.

DB: There's still plenty on the page [laughs]. I mean, this is almost a 200,000-word novel. So there's a lot there. But if I've done my job, it moves very, very quickly and it's a lot of fun. And you, at the end of the day, don't really realize until you're done how much you've learned along the way.

KO: Mm-hmm.

DB: You know, we read fiction to find out what happens to characters, and we want to know that the good guys figure out how to get what they need, and the bad guys get what's coming to them and all that. We got to give the reader what they expect in a way they do not see coming.

KO: Well, you're certainly an expert at that. I have to imagine, for the amount of research that's poured into this, you are very comfortable with the delete button as you sort of get a ton of details and then have to remove, but I want to talk to you about your research. You know, most of this book takes place in Prague. Were you spending time in the city and, and how did you approach immersing yourself in noetics?

DB: Prague is the mystical capital of Europe ever since the 1500s when Emperor Rudolf brought all the mystics and scribes and kabbalists and alchemists to Prague. It really has had that reputation as the mystical center. So, when I was deciding to write about consciousness, I thought, "Well, it's got to be Prague." And I love using location as a character. And Prague is, you know, aside from being absolutely spectacularly gorgeous, it is Robert Langdon central. I mean, it's tunnels and secret passageways and castles and all the things that we have come to love and expect from these books.

Yeah, this book could be placed nowhere other than Prague. It is really the mindset I take when I start out and I say, "Look, this story requires this location or else you can't tell it." And that just forces me to use the location in ways that are integral to the plot.

KO: Yeah. You sort of get lost alongside him in this city as well, too. And, as you said, you get to see the city through so many different perspectives, both people that live there and people that are visiting there. But I want to talk about another prominent character in The Secret of Secrets, which is Katherine and Robert's book editor, Jonas.

DB: [Laughs]

KO: Your novel is dedicated to your editor, Jason, which is, of course, an anagram for Jonas. Much of the plot of the book is about a stolen manuscript, and there's a lot of fun inside-baseball here as well for book fans. And even the title of the novel has its own meta meaning we learn at the end. But what was it like for you two working on this book together? I imagine it was fun, but what was that separation of life and art like?

DB: Yeah, it was funny all the time because the character Jonas Faukman in the novel really functions as a little bit of comedic relief in a very, very tense novel. The funny part about it is that Jonas finds himself inside the pages of a thriller. He is in a very dangerous situation and trying to get out of it by using what he's learned in thrillers. And, of course, none of it works [laughs]. And he's like, "Oh, they call it fiction for a reason. None of this is working."

"This book is, by far, the most intricately plotted book I've ever, ever attempted."

And the funny thing was having Jason edit Jonas, he goes, "I ... Like, I'm, I'm too funny." He was having a very hard time separating the character from himself. He's a funny guy. We have a lot of fun in these books. It's also an enormous amount of work that we both do. The thing that I like best about Jason is that he understands what I'm trying to do.

KO: Mm-hmm.

DB: I write these books in a very intentional way. Uh, some people love what I do, some people hate it, but that's not really the point. I set out to write this exact kind of book. And he understands that and edits it as that kind of book. And I think if I had a different editor, we'd constantly be butting heads. He and I have very short attention spans: love short chapters, love, you know, just plots that drag you through the novel ending every chapter with a cliffhanger. So, it's a lot of fun.

KO: I imagine. Just a few moments ago, you were saying how you want this belief that the bad guys are going to get what they deserve. And that was very much Jonas throughout this story, you know, just sort of blindly being like, "Well, they're going to get it. [laughs] You know, like this. What they don't know is this is what I do [laughs]." And not realizing, too, along the way, he was falling for some of the plot holes that they had set up for him as well—which was interesting to see.

DB: The other really funny thing about the Jonas character, we get to see inside Penguin Random House, inside a publishing company. We learn: How are books purchased. How are they protected? How are they edited? How are they published? How are they marketed? I think for readers who love books, it's a little glimpse behind the scenes at what happens in it, you know, to publish a big book.

KO: Yeah. I think fans will really like that as I sort of said, inside-baseball moments. And also, too, getting to see how books are protected and delivered as well—which, obviously, factors into the story here, as I mentioned. The stolen manuscript of it all. But very fun to see that track of the story as well.

I'm sure the character of Robert Langdon feels like family to you at this point. What is your favorite thing about him, about the character?

DB: Well, I think novelists often live vicariously through their characters. Langdon and I share a passion for art and symbols and codes and mysteries and that sort of thing—except his life is much more interesting than mine. He's traveling the world and he's, you know, dodging assassins and all that sort of thing. I'm sitting alone in the dark with my dog and a computer. So, I think, on some level, I get to live vicariously through somebody who is putting all of this knowledge that he has to work in the real world.

KO: That's really nice. Another longtime partner here, your longtime series narrator, Paul Michael, returned to perform The Secret of Secrets. Did you two connect at all ahead of his recording?

DB: Yes and no. We connected digitally, so I don't know if that's a true connection or not. I'm a huge fan of his, and I was so grateful to hear that he had time and was willing to come back and read The Secret of Secrets. I'm not sure there's anybody better. I just really think he does a super job, and people say, "Well, Dan, why don't you read your books?" I say, "Oh my God." Like, you don't understand. This is a performance art. You have to somehow read as characters that are men and women from different countries, in different accents. It is not easy to do this well. Until you really listen to how hard these people work at really narrating a tale, you don't realize just how good they are.

KO: Absolutely. You certainly don't make it easy for Paul either. He has a ton of voices he has to contend with from all over the world. And he really did a wonderful job, with a lot of nuance, I think, in The Secret of Secrets as well, really distinguishing these characters, this huge cast. And he does such a great job of both bringing them to life, but also really mirroring the tension that exists in your writing. It's a hard one to pause, if you will, as you're listening.

DB: I'm glad. I know before they started recording, Paul and the producer sent me a very, very long list of words that “we just want to make sure we're pronouncing these correctly.” There was, you know, Czech, there was Russian, there was hardcore science. And I keep talking about science. My readers know. The book is a chase. It's a love story. It's an adventure. It's a giant riddle. There's a lot of science in it, but it is, you know, definitely palatable. I wrote it in such a way that you do not need to know a thing about physics or neuroscience or noetics to entirely understand everything that's happening.

KO: No, you did all that legwork for us, which I thank you for [laughs].

DB: That's right. It only took eight years, but, yeah, I did.

KO: But you got there. And I also appreciate, too, your sort of disclaimer at the beginning as well. That all of the science that you're talking about—the experiments and everything—it's all true. I think that both helps ground the listener in reality and also adds a little bit of terror to the experience as well because some of the stuff that you're sharing in there certainly sounds like it is fantastical. And it's not.

DB: Well, there are the results of certain scientific experiments in the novel that when I first read it, I thought, "Well, this can't possibly be true. There's no way that reality is that strange.” And, you know, you do extra research, and you talk to scientists, and you find out: "Oh, all of this is true." And I've actually talked to a couple reviewers who've said, "I read this novel twice, once the second time with, you know, the computer opened next to me researching every single thing I didn't believe and every single one of these things is true." And you say, "How can that be?"

KO: Yeah.

DB: Well, that's sort of the point of the book, that we really do not understand the way reality works, the way our minds work. And again, I think we're at this great cusp of a moment, when our view of human consciousness is going to change dramatically.

KO: Yeah. It's funny you say that, that they went through it again, because as soon as I finished, I hit play on the prologue again. I was like, now I need to hear the prologue. Now that I know everything.

DB: Now that you know everything. Right.

KO: Now that I know everything, I need to hear the prologue again (laughs).

DB: That's great.

KO: Of course, you've been doing all this research, so are you getting to read or listen to anything outside of your research for your own enjoyment?

DB: No. I do not read fiction. I read constantly and listen constantly. But it's all nonfiction for research. The great thing about audiobooks is that you can—I don't want to say multitask because you're listening—but if there's something mindless, like being on a treadmill or mowing the lawn or, you know, just taking a walk with a dog, or something that you can do without really engaging your mind and can focus on what you're listening to—it's wonderful that you can take a hike and read a book at the same time. It's just such a pleasure. And often my eyes get tired because I'm going to look at the screen all day.

KO: Yeah.

DB: I'll say, you know, "I'm just going to listen to this one." And it's just a wonderful thing to be able to do.

KO: That's great. We love a good use case!

DB: [laughs]

KO: There are several examples in the book of people having memories that belong to someone else or someone experiencing, for example, a traumatic head injury and waking up with a new skill. Do you have a favorite moment of shared consciousness or even a historical coincidence that you have come across in your research?

DB: Certainly, plenty of them in my research. I want to be clear that I have not had a mystical experience. I've never had an out-of-body experience, a premonition that I would consider astonishing. When I say I've become a believer, it's not because, you know, the heavens have opened up and reached down and enlightened me. It's from a lot of research and a lot of science that finally convinced me that the world's far stranger than we imagined. It's interesting, you know, you talk about getting hit in the head with a baseball or out-of-body experiences. These are what we call anomalies, to our view. We call them paranormal, outside what's normal.

"We're at this great cusp of a moment, when our view of human consciousness is going to change dramatically."

They're anomalies because they don't fit with our model of consciousness. Our current model of consciousness is local consciousness, and it’s that all of our hopes and dreams and fears are the product of chemical processes in our brain. And that makes sense to us. It's how it feels to us. And yet, there are these anomalies. You get people on operating tables who die and see themselves from above and come back to life and say, "This is what happened." They said, "But your eyes were taped shut. You couldn't see this." Other people get hit in the head with the baseball and suddenly speak Chinese or play violin. These are the sorts of things that are absolutely impossible in local consciousness.

You know, as I talk about in the novel, there was a moment in our history when we believed the Earth was the center of the solar system. And that was our model. And there were so many anomalies, stars out of place, and planets coming up at the wrong time that we said, "We need a new model." We put the sun at the center and all the anomalies disappeared.

We are at that moment with human consciousness when the anomalies have piled up to the point where we're saying, "This model of local consciousness does not work, we need a new model." And that's really what this book is about. And the new model is so exciting and has so much promise for things like global peace, death, interconnections of people who are miles and miles apart. It's pretty exciting.

KO: Yeah, it is. And I think, again—going back to the way that you open the novel as well—you have a quote at the beginning, too. Is it Nikola Tesla?

DB: It is.

KO: The quote that opens it about how, once we finally turn our attention to the study of consciousness, science is going to achieve more in 10 years than it did in the last. I'm butchering this, but the last hundred, I want to say.

DB: No, you did a pretty good job [laughs]. That is basically what it says. And what has happened is there's a group of scientists, noetic scientists, and physicists and neuroscientists who are turning all of their attention to the human mind.

And we've known since about the '50s, we've had proof that the human mind and thought can affect physical mass. And when you think, "Wait a minute, I can think something and change the molecular structure of something or the way a piece of matter is behaving, that's impossible." Well, no, no, the double-slit experiment proved that a long time ago. And since then, we've had more and more and more fascinating experiments that really show you that, uh, well, there's a precognition experiment that essentially shows that either time moves forward and backwards or your brain can tell a computer what picture to show you. I mean, there's really no other explanation.

KO: Right.

DB: And, when I first heard about this precognition experiment, which I lay out in the novel—and your listeners will hear the whole thing—I thought that can't possibly be true. This, this ... Somebody's making this up, and it has been replicated over and over. And you say, "Okay, all right. If that's the way it is, I really need to rearrange the way I think about the world."

KO: I was going to say, too, and also the power of manifestation, to a certain extent as well, I was like, "Ooh, I'm going to start thinking about some things a little differently, maybe." What type of power am I possessing over here? Oh, hello.

DB: For your listeners, my dog, Winston, has just appeared.

KO: Hello, Winston.

DB: And Winston was named after the villain in Origin. He was an AI.

KO: I was going to say [laugh]. Is this AI Winston?

DB: This is AI Winston. And, it's funny, I named Winston after the character, and somebody said, "Do you know that at the end of the book, that guy comes back and kills his master?" I'm like, "Oh, yeah, that's right." Bad dog. Careful [laughs].

KO: And then self-destructs.

DB: I know. Well, you know, Winston so far is very well-behaved. Yeah.

KO: This is the, the good side of Winston. The good side of AI Winston here.

DB: Exactly. Yeah.

KO: That's amazing. That's great. What does a typical day of writing look like for you? And are you ever overwhelmed when you sit down to write, thinking about the sheer size of your audience? Does that ever get in your way?

DB: Um, no. Strangely, it doesn't. It did for about a month after The Da Vinci Code came out.

KO: Mm-hmm.

DB: I'd written three novels that really had, uh ... Well, they had dozens of readers [laughs]. They really had no readership. My first three novels were commercial failures. And really nobody knew about them or bought them. And that's an experience that I'm very grateful I had because I absolutely appreciate the success, and I'm much more patient with all of the demands on my time and that sort of thing now.

The funny thing about having a little success in writing is that, when you sit down to write, you're looking at a blank page. Your characters really don't care how many books you've sold. And after Da Vinci Code came out, when I sat down to write The Lost Symbol, I had a very strange experience, and that was that I became very self-aware. I would type a sentence and then delete it. I say, like, "Wait, I mean, millions of people are going to read this. This has to be better or magical or something." And eventually, I realized, "Wait a minute. I've done this before."

And at that time, my other three novels that have been failures were now at the top of the bestseller list. I hadn't changed a single word. And I realized like, "Oh, people do share my taste." So, I thought, "Well, just do what you've done," which is write the book that you would want to read. And so really, when I'm writing, I'm not thinking so much about the readership or listenership. I am thinking mainly about, "Let me write something that challenges me as a reader," and then I know people will share my taste. So you kind of go in a little bit of a cocoon. And this book, you know, I finished it and I thought, "I really do think this is successful, and it works very well for what I was trying to do." But you don't know.

And so, this is a wonderful moment for me because all of these advanced copies went out on, you know, DigiFi with NDAs and all this stuff. And a bunch of people have read it, which is something we haven't done with the other books. It was under lock & key. And the interviews that I'm having, the people are coming in saying, "This is a better book than Da Vinci Code. Like, I absolutely love this." So, I can start to exhale and say like, "Okay, so, so at least some people enjoy it." So, I can't wait for listeners to start hearing this.

KO: Yeah. I think it's going to blow people's minds to a certain extent and really take them for a ride. It was very, uh ... “fun” sometimes feels like a strange word to use when there are some more gruesome things that are happening. But it is a fun listen, ultimately. You're just entertained the whole time.

DB: Oh, that is great to hear. When I sit down and write, that's the number one thing that I'm trying to do—to entertain first. Because if you don't entertain, nobody's going to read and learn.

KO: Right. Does your research ever kind of invade your personal life when you're trying to step away for the day? Like, is it ever keeping you up at night? Are you able to separate that sort of life and art moment?

DB: I've learned how to do that. I write a lot of hours. I start around 4:00 in the morning, and I will write and research until about noon. I mean, that's a long day for most writers.

KO: Yeah.

DB: And I've really learned that, in order to be fresh the next day, I have to close the door on it. I leave my office, which is up above me, and I walk and I play piano for about half an hour. I’ve played piano my whole life. And somehow, music is this strange bridge. I don't quite understand how it works, but it's like this bridge between the fictional world and the real world. And then I'll, you know, have some lunch, get some exercise, and then start answering emails and talking to attorneys and agents and all the other stuff that's involved with writing books.

"My first three novels were commercial failures... And that's an experience that I'm very grateful I had because I absolutely appreciate the success, and I'm much more patient with all of the demands on my time and that sort of thing now."

Then, you know, at night, there's nothing I like more than to sit with some good friends at a fire pit and have a nice meal and just have a casual evening with friends. To me, there is nothing better in the world than that. And that usually recharges my battery, such that the next morning at 4:00 a.m., I'm—I don't set an alarm, I just wake up—and I sort of am ready to go.

KO: Ready to go.

DB: Yeah.

KO: I love that music is that bridge for you. I think that's really nice, and I'm sure it's still all the creative brain, but certainly exercising a different part of it.

DB: It is. You know, there's an enormous similarity between writing fiction and writing music. I grew up studying music composition and literary composition in university, and even before that. And when I got out of school, I thought, "Oh, I really want to be a musician." And my mom was a professional musician. I played a lot of piano and had written quite a bit, and did that for a bunch of years, then had an idea for a novel. And as I started writing novels, I realized like, "Oh, this is just like writing music." You really need to understand dynamics, for example. You can't have six car chases in a row any more than you can have six triple fortes, you know, bombastic movements in a row.

KO: Yeah.

DB: You have to understand thematic material. And music themes have to come up and fall away and exist just the right moment when you need them and need to be reminded what they are. You need to understand structure, you know.

Huge in music and in novels. So there's a lot of similarities. People assume they're very, very different. I, I see them really through the same lens and enjoy both of them. I wrote a children's book, Wild Symphony, that, you know, has a big piece of music that goes along with it. And that was a wonderful experience.

KO: That's amazing. And I love this thought, too: you're composing. Whether it's music or whether you are working on your story, you're really composing a full experience here. So, I take it then that you're a plotter [laughs] as you're sort of describing this.

DB: Well, I mean, if you've listened to the book, you know that there's a lot of twists and turns. And if I had started this book without knowing where I was going to end it, I would have been in a lot of trouble. I'm absolutely a plotter. I think that if you're writing thrillers, you absolutely have to know where you're headed. And there's a famous writer who once said people who start writing without knowing the ending are just terrible liars. And it's funny, I really do write the ending and the beginning first.

KO: Yeah?

DB: I put them as far away from each other as possible. As close as possible in time, but as far away in setting and landscape, just sort of, you start at the beginning of the day and things look this way. And at the end of the day, they have to look this way. And the closer to each other you can set them, the harder your characters have to work to make that journey from point A to point B. And, of course, you have to throw in front of them every miserable obstacle that could possibly be imagined.

Also, I love codes and puzzles, I always have, and I think a lot of people do. And so you've got to find a way to feather those into the story in such a way that they feel integral to the plot and that the reader or listener has the fun of trying to figure it out along with your character. And if you do it well, they either figure it out at the same moment or, when they see the answer, they go: "Oh my God, I can't believe it was right there in front of me."

And the same goes for twists. You never want to write a twist where the listener hears the twist and says, "Wait, what? I, I don't get it." And you don't want to have a twist where somebody says, "Yeah, yeah, I know. I figured that out two hours ago." [laughs] So, you've got to sort of find that happy medium.

KO: Has a character ever surprised you along the way? Like, have you ever started writing one and then you're like, "You know what, wait, they have their own life and direction here they're trying to take me on?"

DB: No, I, I think you absolutely need to wrestle your characters to your will. However, there was a character in this book named Emanuel Swedenborg that I wrote for about three years, and he was integral to the plot. And there was a moment when Jason and I looked at each other, said, "You know what, Swedenborg's got to go. Like, he's not pulling his weight." [laughs] So, that was a painful day. And he actually made the acknowledgments. You know, I just felt badly for him [laughs]. I put him in the acknowledgments. Nobody will have any idea who it is except Jason and me. And now your listeners.

KO: Amazing. I love that. RIP, Swedenborg, maybe in another one [laughs].

DB: Exactly. Yeah. Some other time.

KO: Well, what is next for you? And, can we expect more from Robert in the future?

DB: Uh, I would be shocked if there were not more Robert Langdon novels. At the moment, I am utterly exhausted and I'm about to embark on a two-month international book tour to talk about The Secret of Secrets. So, I do have an idea for the next book. I'm starting to outline, starting to research, but at the moment, I have to be careful not to get too far into it because this brain only holds so much. And I find that if I'm trying to work on two things at the same time, I'll be giving an interview to you about Secret of Secrets and giving answers that relate to whatever the next thing I'm doing is.

KO: Well, I was about to ask: Can we expect another reoccurrence of Katherine perhaps in the next one?

DB: I have really fallen for their relationship. And it's been a whole lot of fun to write, and they're great foils for each other, because she's farther down the road in the world of spirituality, and she's sort of dragging him along with her. And he is playing this wonderful role that, you know, when listeners hear her, Katherine, say, "Here's this experiment that proves precognition," the listener immediately says, like, "That's impossible."

And fortunately, Langdon immediately says, "That's impossible." And so she has to prove it to him. So, the listener gets to say like, "Oh, wait a minute. I don't have to be this skeptic. I can exhale. I've got a skeptic. And when he's convinced, I'll be convinced. And I can just know that he, all the way along the way, is not going to take anything for granted, and I can just relax and go along for the ride."

KO: I love it. Well, we will eagerly join that ride whenever it comes with both Robert and hopefully Katherine as well.

DB: Thank you.

KO: Dan, thank you so much for your time today. It was so wonderful getting to speak with you about this amazing and lasting series.

DB: Thank you so much for having me. A real pleasure.

KO: And listeners, you can get The Secret of Secrets by Dan Brown right now on Audible.