The Hell Candidate

I opened my eyes. I wasn’t dreaming. I was awake. And right beside me, Jennifer was panting and moaning and bouncing up and down on the bed. I stared harder into the darkness, chilled with fright, and against the dim gray light that filtered in through the closely-drawn drapes, I saw an outline on top of Jennifer that made me cram my hand into my mouth to stop myself from screaming.

It was a huge, bulky outline, as dark as sin. But its eyes glowed slanted and orange, like the eyes of a wolf, and on its head were two curved horns. It stank of stale incense and animal sweat, and it was grunting with grotesque delight.

When businessman Hunter Peal decided to run for President of the USA, they said he didn’t have a chance in Hell … but they were wrong. Initially he seemed pleasant and moderate … but then everything started to change.

As his popularity grew, so did his ability to influence people, sending them weeping to their knees, and seeing sights which no cameras could capture. And what of his opponents and the strange ‘accidents’ which befel them? Indeed, Hunter Peal was not the man he once was … one of the denizens of Hell has made a pact with him, and on his inauguration, all Hell will be let loose. Literally.

Telos Publishing is proud to present a superb new edition of this long out-of-print 1981 novel. A horrific tale of lust and greed and power from one of the genre’s greatest writers, Graham Masterton.

‘If you like horror novels, the kind that make you catch your breath at certain parts, can change your perception of the temperature in the room and leave you with impressions that can’t be unseen for days – if ever – then this is your book. It really is an absolute masterpiece and in my opinion one of the weirdest, most twisted horror tales ever told, where the message, “Be careful who you vote for” really makes a hell of a lot of sense.’ Cat DeSpira, Retrobitch

327pp approx. 6×9 format paperback novel.
ISBN 978-1-84583-972-7
Published March 2018

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Graham Masterton was born in Edinburgh on 16 January 1946. After finishing his education at the Whitgift School in Croydon, he worked for the Crawley Observer as a cub reporter. In 1967 applied to work for the Daily Telegraph, but was turned down. He then went to his uncle, who worked on the Evening Standard, and was turned down again due to lack of experience. A day later, his girlfriend suggested trying a new magazine called Mayfair. He applied and was hired. As it turned out, he ended up doing virtually everything: writing the headlines, copy editing, typography – training that resulted in him being able to write about anything at short notice.

After three years, he moved over to the UK edition of Penthouse. The publishers had just started an American edition, which led to Masterton visiting New York on a regular basis, getting to know the American publishers. With the support of those publishers he started writing sex instruction books.

In 1975 he turned to horror. His first novel was The Manitou, which was an instant hit, selling half-a-million copies in six months, and was filmed with Tony Curtis playing the lead role. He followed that success with a stream of further titles. In the ’80s he diversified into writing historical sagas, thrillers, even movie tie-ins.

Nowadays he continues to write horror novels but after spending five years living in Cork, in Ireland, he has developed a bestselling series of crime novels featuring Detective Superintendent Katie Maguire.