Moriarty rarely smiled,and then usually to terrify some poor victim. The first time I heard him laugh, I thought he had been struck by a deadly poison and the stutter escaping through his locked jaws...

I’ve often described my book ‘Anno Dracula’ as ‘literally, a vampire novel’ – in that it battens on to other novels and sucks their lifeblood, transforming as well as feeding off them.

Dracula can sustain many interpretations and exists in many phantasmal forms… and Johnny Alucard is my attempt to explore the multiplicity of Draculas unloosed on the world in the long wake of Stoker’s novel.

There will never be slaves in Britain,’ Godalming continued, ‘but those who stay warm will naturally serve us, as the excellent Bessie has just served me. Have a care, lest you wind up the equivalent...

No crime too small’ was never exactly Moriarty’s slogan, but the criminal genius would apply himself to minor offences if an unusual challenge was presented.