The Devil's Playground

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Conway drives through the inhospitable landscape to reach his destination: Hidden Lake, a manmade enclave in the middle of nowhere. It was built by a delusional financier who hoped to create a second Hollywood. Those hopes were buried when the lake dried up: Award-winning, best-selling and critically-acclaimed author. His novels have been published in twenty-five languages around the world. The movie rights to the Devil Aspect have been bought by Columbia Pictures. Biblical, his science-fiction novel, has been acquired by Imaginarium Studios/Sonar Entertainment, four Jan Fabel novels have been made into movies (in one of which Craig Russell makes a cameo appearance as a detective) for ARD, the German national broadcaster, and the Lennox series has been optioned for TV development. 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.

Christ, he thinks, it’s like a movie set. He gives a small laugh at the weird appropriateness of the thought, but at the same time it sits uneasily with him, as if he struggles to decide to which of his universes the scene should belong. A dark, riveting thriller set in 1920s Hollywood about “the greatest horror movie ever made”, the curse said to surround it, and a deadly search, decades later, for the single copy rumoured still to exist. Craig Russell is a master of his craft... The Devil’s Playground may represent his pinnacle... Russell’s storytelling is seamless... Russell’s taut dialogue and visual storytelling feel like watching a movie... A tightly plotted, propulsive story filled with multilayered characters. Your only complaint may be that the book has to end. But, oh, what a perfect gothic ending it is." The plot does feel very busy, but eventually all the pieces come together relatively neatly considering all the moving parts of this story which span decades and multiple locales. While some of the revelations were telegraphed early, they didn’t manage to spoil the bigger surprises, and I can always appreciate a good standalone horror. At times, Russell’s taut dialogue and visual storytelling feel like watching a movie. (In fact, several of the novels in his German detective series, Jan Fabel, have either been made into movies or are in production.) The same descriptive skill comes to the fore when heintroduces Kansas-born Boy Lindqvist in an 1897 storyline. Lindqvist runs away to join the Dahlman and Darke Magic Lantern Phantasmagoria circus after witnessing its sleight-of-hand act “where a dark shape spread itself wide. Revealed its true form.” That form was Satan. And Satan spoke to him.Mary Rourke trots down the stairs. Four men wait for her in the hall. Of the four, there is no doubt who is in charge. The Golem. Sam Geller is a giant of a man: six and a half feet tall, barrel-chested, heavy-featured. When he speaks—which is seldom, and never without purpose—his voice is a rumbling baritone. His bright and intelligent eyes hide in the shadows of both his heavy brow and dark-gray fedora.

I absolutely adored it. Intense, harrowing and hugely entertaining. . . Spectacular' Chris Whitaker A dark, riveting thriller set in 1920s Hollywood about "the greatest horror movie ever made", the curse said to surround it, and a deadly search, decades later, for the single copy rumoured still to exist. She sips at her lemonade. “Well, all I can say is you’re looking in an odd place for your lost masterpiece.” She nods to the window, its tilted slats muting the dazzle of the sun. “This time of year, it hits a hundred twenty out there. No moisture in the air. You know what happens to old nitrate film if it goes above seventy degrees?”An engrossing thriller likely to satisfy even the most demanding hardboiled fans as well as movie buffs… a gallery of sharply-drawn characters … twists lurking around every Californian corner and a pace that never tires… wonderfully drawn and unique protagonists … a memorable piece of work that I just lapped up with relish." The Devil’s Playground has a depth of period detail and atmosphere that lifts it above the ordinary. It’s elegant, absorbing and thrilling’ Michael Malone There’s witchcraft and Voodoo, gunplay, arson, and premature burial…nothing is what it seems to be amid the artifice of Hollywood….Intriguing and entertaining.” The story is a thrilling ride through the murky depths of madness and horror, written with all Craig's trademark skill and style. Definitely five stars from me' James Oswald

Seamlessly blends noir, gothic and mystery in a way that’s unique to crime fiction. Populated with a truly memorable cast, Playground is a guaranteed one-sitting read…and how can you resist a novel about the scariest movie of all time? Bravo!’ Jeffery Deaver, author of The Bone Collector

Member Reviews

The three narratives are expertly intertwined in this richly textured and erudite Hollywood gothic… Russell brings the decadent L.A. scene alive.” 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.” The most richly accomplished of the brothers’ pairings to date—and given Connelly’s high standards, that’s saying a lot. How long before you have to call it in?” she asks Nolan when she is finished. “It depends on what we’re talking about, and whether the detective branch get

An] excellent, engrossing historical horror novel, one that explores the symbiosis of power and evil in the Golden Age of Hollywood. Russell, the author of the brilliant The Devil Aspect, is a steady guide, ferrying readers between Hollywood’s promises and its terrible reality. His precise, gorgeous prose shines." Mary Rourke nods without comment. Considered by many to be the most desirable woman in the world, the woman on the bed is indeed very beautiful. She is also, Rourke has been told, very dead. The woman on the bed is the woman in the painting. involved.” Nolan shouts the word “suicide” without uttering it. “The maid called the station house, so the time is logged. She barely speaks English, so all that’s recorded so far is there’s some kind of emergency. But I have to call in with some details. I can give you another twenty minutes. Half-hour, tops.” He pauses. “There’s a wrinkle.” A terrifying tale of the true power in Hollywood... (Russell's) precise, gorgeous prose shines' New York Times

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There are some chapters set in the more modern (relatively speaking) 1960s which go someway to explaining away the truth of the story, and those scenes alone create a kind of tension, an uneasiness that it’s hard to identify but even harder to ignore. Other scenes, set in the past, long before The Devil’s Playground is even a spark in someone’s imagination, all add to the legend that is to come, informing what follows in ways that brought a smile to my face and an overwhelming sense of satisfaction as the book drew to a close. Rourke recognizes him instantly, as would a quarter of the population of the world. She sighs, stifling a curse. She stops and turns to him. He sees her features clearly for the first time, and a thrill of recognition runs through him. There remains a faded magnificence to her. Her hair is bright white against the dark tan of her face, but he realizes that, were she to dye it, she could pass for a woman twenty years her junior. What fascinates him most is that hers is a face he knows so well—not aged, as it is now, but in bygone, camera-­captured flawless youth. Looking at her now, he can see the fundaments of the beauty that had distinguished her younger self. It is, he thinks, like looking at some classical monument—like the Acropolis, or the Sphinx of Giza—where hints of the original, long-­distant splendor shine through the ravages of time. 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.”