Hi Graham Masterton, thank's that you have taking the time to answer a few questions of Elements of Crime.

You have worked as an editor at the Penthouse magazine and have written very successful sex counselor. What made you decide, after the time at Penthouse, to write horror novels in the first place?

I started writing sex books as an extension of a regular sex-counselling column I used to write for Mayfair, which was a British men's magazine I used to work for before I went to Penthouse. When I moved to Penthouse I was asked by a New York publisher to write more sex books for them, including HOW A WOMAN LOVES TO BE LOVED which I wrote under the pseudonym of "Angel Smith"! I was commissioned to write more sex books, but then my publishers decided that the market for sex books was flooded with too many books. As a substitute for my next sex books, I sent them THE MANITOU, which I had written purely to amuse myself. It had taken me only five days to write, and I based it on the pregnancy of my wife Wiescka with our first son, and a story about Native American magic which I had read in The Buffalo Bill Annual 1956 when I was a boy.

You have written more than 100 novels, how do you get your ideas from?

I always tell a story about this. My father served in the British Army so that I used to spend all of my school holidays in Germany -- in Lippstadt, Munster and Bielefeld. When I was in Bielefeld one day I came across an antique shop, and in this antique shop I found strange old enamel tin box with a lock on it. I asked the owner of the shop how much it was. He said 10 DM. I only had 8 DM but he let me have it. When I took it home and open the lock I found that the box was full of ideas for supernatural stories. So now, every time I need an idea for a new novel, I open the box and take another one out. Actually, this is not true...I was trained as a newspaper reporter so every time I see an interesting news story or an interview with an interesting character I make a note of it, and see if I can combine it with a myth or legend of some threatening creature from the past. Most of my books are about ordinary modern-day people having to fight against some ancient evil, and this is how my stories are generated.

Prey (in german “Die Opferung”) and the Pariah (in german “Der Ausgestossene”) are two of my absolute favorite novels, they are so dark and unsettling, nerve-rending without much blood. What is your recipe for success to captivate the readers so much?

I think you simply have to make your readers believe that the events they are reading about are really happening to real people. Creating believable characters is critical, and so is creating a believable setting. I try very hard to write in a cinematic way, rather than a literary way, so readers get the feeling that they are actually there, inside the story, living it alongside the characters.

In “The Pariah” you mentioned, or rather the figure of John “ H. P. Lovecraft”. Why, is he a role model for your stories and are you a fan of him?

I used to like HP Lovecraft when I was younger, especially the italics at the end of most of his stories. What I particularly like about him was that he invented his own mythology which was not connected to all of the old European devils and demons.

The basic structure of “The Pariah” is based on a true story, the witch process in Salem of 1692, are also documented in the history books. How did you get the idea, to build the story on this event?

I had visited Salem and Marblehead (which in the book appears as Granitehead) and I thought the setting was very atmospheric. I had also just read about the raising of Henry VIII's ill-fated galleon the Mary Rose, and thought it would be very entertaining (and scary) to think that there might still be something lurking in the hold of an old sunken ship

“Prey” plays on the Isle of Wight and the main setting is an old villa (the Fortyfoot-House) and the property, which is used as a gateway to another bad time. Please tell us something about the origin of this novel.

My family and I spent a few days on the Isle of Wight in the house that had once belonged to Charles Dickens...which is the model for Fortyfoot House. The house was very creaky at night and it occurred to me that it would make a wonderful setting for a Lovecraft-type story. I had been keen for a long time to bring Lovecraft's rat-creature Brown Jenkin back to life, and this was the ideal opportunity!

Most of your novels have been standalone, though you have written three series (The Manitou, Night Warriors and Rook). It’s interesting to write stand alone, because then you can be more creative?

Even the books I write in series can be read without having to read any of the others. Mostly, as I have explained, ideas come together purely by chance. I see a fascinating story in a newspaper, and the next thing I know it has turned itself into the basis for a novel. Although a stand-alone novel does give me the scope to write about something completely new, and write about it in a different way, I do like writing about the characters who have appeared in some of my series, such as Harry Erskine in the Manitou series, the Night Warriors, and Jim Rook the college teacher with the ability to see ghosts and demons.

What projects are you currently working on? Please can you tell our readers about any of them?

I have finished a new Night Warriors novel THE 9TH NIGHTMARE, which will be published in January 2011 by Severn House Publishers. My vampire novel DESCENDANT will be available as an e-book from Leisure Books from next month, and as a print-on-demand paperback next summer. I have just finishing writing PETRIFIED which is about gargoyles coming to life and attacking people. I am afraid that the villain is German -- very clever, but very ruthless. His name is Theodor Zauber. Now I have started a new thriller about my Irish female detective, Katie Maguire.

Is there a writer, perhaps also from other genres, whose work you like?

I was friends in the late 1960s with William Burroughs, who wrote The Naked Lunch and Nova Express among other books. He was very experimental in his writing and developed something which he called "intersection writing" which involves mixing up words and sentences like a literary kaleidoscope so that they take on new and different meanings. I wrote a novel with William's encouragement RULES OF DUEL which I recently rediscovered (after more than 40 years!) and which has just been published by a small publisher called Telos Books. I like the early books by Len Deighton, and Nelson Algren, and the work of my Dutch friend Jan Cremer who is mostly an artist but writes amazingly well. When I stayed in Germany as a boy I discovered the poet Theodor Storm and he is still one of my favorite poets.

Is there anything you'd like to say to your fans in Germany finally?

I have always had a place in my heart for Germany, especially Munster. I can still remember most of my German, and I can still remember the taste of fresh apfelstrudel with heaps of cream on it...it always tasted better if you ate it walking along the street! I am only sorry that more of my books have not been translated into German but I am working on it!