A masterwork. . .This is a terrific blend of historical fiction, with its depiction of classic Hollywood, and chilling supernatural elements. We go along for the ride.” As puppies. But I don’t want the detective branch getting involved. We’ve got half on the payroll, but the rags have got the other half. And I can hear a headline screaming.” For about thirty years. It was called Sudden Lake because it sprung up out there over a few months in 1910.” This story unfolds in 3 timelines, 2 in Hollywood and one in Louisiana. In 1927, a silent horror film is under production. When its star is discovered dead in her home, that is only the beginning of the tragic events that begin to plague the production of The Devil’s Playground. The movie came to be known as both the subject of a curse, and as the greatest horror movie ever made. Its legend was enhanced by the fact that all copies of the film were supposedly destroyed. In 1967, a film historian believes that he is on the trail of a single preserved copy.

A terrifying tale of the true power in Hollywood… (Russell’s) precise, gorgeous prose shines’ New York TimesRussell delivers a brooding, stunningly atmospheric tale set in Stevenson's Edinburgh - multi-layered and intricately plotted, this is a Gothic thriller from the hands of a master.' - Margaret Kirk, author of Shadow Man There is an economy and purposefulness in the woman’s movements as she makes her way to the house. As she passes, she looks into the parked police wagon and, seeing it is empty, walks on through the open gates and up to the house. An expensive, foreign-made, sand-colored sporting coupe sits at an angle on the driveway as if abandoned in haste, its top down, the driver’s door flung open.

Mary Rourke—a Hollywood studio fixer—is called urgently to the palatial home of Norma Carlton, one of the most recognizable stars in American silent film. Norma has been working on the secret film everyone is openly talking about... a terrifying horror picture called The Devil’s Playground that is rumored to have unleashed a curse on everyone involved in the production. Mary finds Norma’s cold, dead body, and she wonders for just a moment if these dark rumors could be true. The award winning Craig Russell immerses the reader in an atmospheric historical thriller with elements of the gothic, set in the turbulent 1920s silent golden era of Hollywood, on the cusp of the entry of talking movies. It is inhabited with the famous beautiful people, with their carefully resurrected pasts, as fictional as the movies they create. It's a time of prohibition and speakeasys, of grandiose homes, drugs, overflowing drinks, parties, and debauchery. When the stars did get in trouble, PR and fixers like Mary Roarke for Carbine International Pictures, smooth things over, just as she does with the apparent suicide at home of the film legend that is Norma Carleton. She was the star of the 'cursed' The Devil's Playground, billed as the most spectacular horror movie of all time, but one which keeps getting hit by tragic mishap after mishap. First off, I found the author's writing style a bit precious and dense. He obviously had his thesaurus close to hand while he was writing this, because he never used the clear and simple word when he could find the more obscure and - I assume he felt - important-sounding big or complex word instead. I am pretty well-read and am a business-writer so I have a fairly wide vocabulary, but even I had to look up multiple words while reading this. 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. It was a bit annoying and did not endear the author to this reader. Separated by decades, both Rourke and Conway begin to suspect that the real Devil's Playground is in fact Hollywood itself. Other than that, all there is, is the vast, pale, hot-­as-­hell desert stretching gray and white, yellow and rust, all the way to where the mountains rumble dark on the horizon.Hollywood studio fixer Mary Rourke is called to the palatial home of "the most desirable woman in the world", silent movie actress Norma Carlton, star of The Devil's Playground . When Rourke finds Carlton dead, she wonders if the dark rumours she's heard are true: that The Devil's Playground really is a cursed production. But nothing in Hollywood is ever what it seems, and cynical fixer Rourke, more used to covering up the truth for studio bosses, finds herself seeking it out. I absolutely adored it. Intense, harrowing and hugely entertaining. . . Spectacular' Chris Whitaker

Harry Bosch and the Lincoln Lawyer team up to exonerate a woman who’s already served five years for killing her ex-husband.I know it’s an old chestnut,” says Wilson, “but it’s the path of least resistance. I’ll revise her records at the clinic to match the story, do an autopsy tonight, sign the cert, and we can have her casketed tomorrow. Otherwise, you may need to sweeten the county medical examiner’s disposition. And that takes a lot of sugar, from what I’ve heard.” Does Conway find a copy of the film? Is there good reason to believe that this truly is the classic horror movie it’s claimed to be? We have to wait some time to get answers to these questions, but I have to say that it’s a pretty satisfying journey. I don’t have too much to criticise here either, except to say that it’s perhaps all a little too drawn out and as the story comes to a close there are a few more twists and surprises than I think the story really needs. But overall I found it to be another truly gripping tale from this very talented writer.

The policeman nods in the direction of the upper floor. Rourke turns to the maid and speaks comfortingly to her in Spanish for a moment before following the policeman up the marble stairs. The young officer looks at her face. It is impassive, cool; its architecture is high- cheeked and strong-jawed beneath a glitter of blue-green eyes. In any other town in America, in the world, it would be considered a beautiful face. But this is Hollywood, and beautiful faces abound. Faces that are a decade or two younger; eyes whose glitter is more dew and less flint. Nope. When I saw who it was, I phoned you straightaway. I guessed you’d want to see what the story is.” The patrolman’s voice is haunted by the not-too-distant ghosts of Kerry ancestors.No problem,” says Geller. “Just a message. The boss wants to see you tomorrow morning. Because of this, I guess. Asked me to tell you, is all.” Norma didn’t allow her to answer the phone. Her English isn’t good enough.” “She did just fine calling the police.”