The Devil's Playground

Product Information

Hollywood, where make-believe comes to life and anyone can become anything they wish to be, was even more duplicitous during the silent film era before the talkies changed the landscape of the movie industry. More than one of the words I looked up once I had the definition seemed completely unnecessary to get the message across and felt used solely to hammer home how smart the author is. Sit,” she says, and Conway isn’t sure if she is talking to him or the dog, but both obey simultaneously. I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys well written and intriguing stories; it's original and unpredictable, an antidote to a lot of the rather formulaic thrillers that dominate the market. He guesses that she must have followed the cloud of dust the Rambler kicked up all the way along the half-­mile access road to the house.

Indeed, Tinseltown aficionados and fans of the likes of James Ellroy and Raymond Chandler will devour The Devil’s Playground, as will any reader who appreciates a tightly plotted, propulsive story filled with multilayered characters. J. Finn 'The Devil's Playground is definitely on the shortlist for best mystery of the year' Bookpage. This breathtaking tale–set against America’s favorite backdrop, Hollywood–seamlessly blends noir, gothic, and mystery. She steps through the portico and doorway, into an entrance hall that is wide and white, the ceiling ribbed with Spanish arches.

The characters in the book are interesting and I was engaged with some of them, main character Mary Rourke in particular. Separated by decades, both Rourke and Conway begin to suspect that the real Devil’s Playground is in fact Hollywood itself. A wonderful stand alone mystery novel by Craig Russell in which he delves into legends and mysteries from the Golden Era, the Silent Movie era of Hollywood. Beyond the hall’s picture windows he can see the vast waterless lakebed, lying as white and dry as sun-­bleached bone. Whenever a possible scandal arises, it’s up to Mary to show up first and do damage control, taking care of anything that needs sweeping under the rug.

A Yale sophomore fights for her life as she balances academics with supernatural extracurriculars in this smart fantasy thriller, the second in a series. An anonymous client has paid him handsomely to find the only remaining copy of “The Devil’s Playground,” a 1920s silent film reputed to be the scariest horror movie ever made.Now all that’s left at the site is a shell of a thriving town that could have once rivaled Hollywood, and it is here where Paul hopes to learn the whereabouts of the legendary lost film. Decades of labor have wrought her hands as dark and sinewy as the chair’s carved wood, and they sit on her lap in a nervously clutched knot. Paul Conway, film historian and fervid silent movie aficionado, is on the trail of a tantalizing rumour: that a single copy of The Devil’s Playground—a Holy Grail for film buffs that was supposedly cursed and lost to time—may still exist.

There are satanic rituals, black magic and ancient fears and beliefs in play as the filming takes place. Screen trickery that defied logic, stunts and effects so radical that they could only be done once but which helped establish the movie’s infamy. I think I would have enjoyed this more if it had just been dual timelines with equal time spent on both. Stephen King's The Outsider, for instance begins as a relatively straightforward crime story but by the end has become a supernatural horror story, which was where I lost interest, so I feared that the same might be the case with The Devil's Playground; fortunately that wasn't the case. Despite being more striking, it does not match the other pieces in color or value: painted wire substitutes gold, glass and paste imitate jewels.

In 1967 film historian Paul Conway hunts for the rumoured only copy left of The Devil's Playground, a quest that take him to the desert and Sudden Lake. Flashback to 1927 Hollywood, where Mary Rourke works for the film studio Carbine International as a fixer, the person who cleans up the messes made by actors that could damage careers and business. Readers may feel a voyeuristic thrill as the names of Hollywood royalty — Clara Bow, John Barrymore, and Mary Pickford, among others — are dropped into scenes. She is interrupted by the sounds of the young patrolman protesting as someone makes their way in through the main door downstairs. The level of period detail is a delight that evokes an unforgettable era in this beautifully plotted thriller, packed with surprising twists, that I am sure will appeal to a wide variety of readers as well as fans of the author.