The Devil's Playground

A Novel

By: Craig Russell

Narrated by: Kirsten Potter

A riveting 1920s Hollywood thriller about the making of the most terrifying silent film ever made, and a deadly search for the single copy rumored still to exist, from the internationally acclaimed author of The Devil Aspect.

"An excellent, engrossing historical horror novel."—New York Times Book Review
"Rich and riveting...a masterful thriller." —Lincoln Child, #1 New York Times bestselling author
"Addictive." —A.J. Finn, author of The Woman in the Window
"Totally engaging." —Kathy Reichs, author of the Temperance Brennan series

1927: 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.

1967: Paul Conway, a journalist and self-professed film aficionado, is on the trail of a tantalizing rumor. He has heard that a single copy of The Devil’s Playground—a Holy Grail for film buffs—may exist. He knows his Hollywood history and he knows the film endured myriad tragedies and ended up lost to time.

The Devil's Playground is Craig Russell’s tour de force, a richly researched and constructed thriller that weaves through the Golden Age of Hollywood and reveals a blossoming industry built on secrets, invented identities, and a desperate pursuit of image. As Mary Rourke charges headlong through the egos, distractions, and traps that threaten to take her down with the doomed production, she discovers a truth far more sinister than she—or we—could have imagined.

©2023 Craig Russell (P)2023 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

"[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." —New York Times Book Review

"I’ll read anything Craig Russell writes. Indeed I’ve read everything he’s written. His are secret-ingredient thrillers: robustly mainstream novels – readers of Preston & Child, Dean Koontz, and Steve Berry, form an orderly line – charged with a special dark energy, like some elusive taste in a spiked cocktail. It’s addictive. The Devil’s Playground, set partly in a richly evoked 1920s Hollywood, plays like Chinatown meets The Ring, and it’s the most sheerly entertaining novel I’ve raced through in at least a year. In an age when far too many same-old-same-old books are clogging the charts, The Devil’s Playground – fresh, forceful, elegant but wild – deserves to crash the bestseller party." —A.J. Finn, author of The Woman in the Window

"A blend of murder, noir, and horror set against a fascinating time-trip through Hollywood. The Devil’s Playground is totally engaging."—Kathy Reichs, author of the Temperance Brennan series

"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."—Washington Independent Review of Books

Nearly perfection

Russell is masterful at crafting stories that sound and feel appropriate for their settings—Hyde and The Devil Aspect work especially well because of their Victorian setting and gothic inspiration. Unfortunately the hard boiled detective, the noir style, isn’t quite pulled off in The Devil’s Playground. Russell’s prose stands out in the story’s many flashbacks to turn of the century time periods, but the gangster, “toots” slinging dialog of the main storyline falls flat for me.

No regrets buying and reading this book—it is wildly engaging and entertaining despite its more eye-rolling character exchanges, but if you cringe easily, maybe give it a pass and opt for L.A. Confidential or The Black Dahlia instead.

Some of the best narration I’ve heard

The Devil’s Playground is great story to begin with, but what really makes it worthwhile is Kirsten Potter’s narration. You feel like you’re right in the middle of the era of silent movies and Hollywood.

Did not disappoint

This was a blast. Old Hollywood history plus swampy ritual magic are a reliable recipe for a story, plus a creepy carnival? Hell yes.

Popcorn reading

To start the performance is fantastic, the subtile ways the narrator shifts tone depending on who the protagonist is talking to in particular deserves mention. Also the French pronunciation during the Cajun sections of the story is believable and the accent work is great. That said it does bother me how committed they are to saying golem wrong. You’d think a word you were going to say that many times might merit a check.

The story suffers from a considerable amount of bloat and a few too many twists for my liking and for reasons unknown our protagonist becomes a complete idiot at the end of the novel leading to a scene where they are explaining a secret to her and I legitimately thought someone was joking because that secret had been revealed to her in the last chapter but until these guys show up and LITERALLY SPELL IT OUT FOR HER she remains oblivious. That’s fine in a vacuum but like we’ve spent the entire book with this lady who’s supposed to be like this crack fixer and now she apparently can’t add?

That said this was a fun and spooky trip through silent Hollywood that only occasionally feels the need to show off that the author did some cursory research into the period and for the most part I enjoyed the ride.

1920 female private eye detective...

great writing but how realistic is a female private eye in the 1920s? she wouldnt be allowed in any location where business was held. I'm so used to this type of weirdness in media I try not to have it affect the product. I really like the female antagonist but I'm not sure how productive she would be.

Hollywood Noir-or

I was wary of reading anything else by Craig Russell after the instantly predictable slog that was “The Devil Aspect”, yet when I saw that his newest novel would be a horror/noir (noiror?) set in golden age Hollywood, I became cautiously optimistic. While “The Devil Aspect” had a paint by numbers plot and a twist ending a child could see coming, Craig Russell has an undeniable ability to conjure up an authentic feeling to the settings of his stories. He’s an author who’s not afraid to do his homework and painstakingly establishes the world his characters inhabit. While in “The Devil Aspect” it was a foreboding asylum in pre-WW2 Europe, in “The Devil’s Playground” it’s the seductive and dangerous world of 1920’s Hollywood.
We open in the 1960’s with a film scholar interviewing the last surviving cast member of a legendary (and seemingly cursed) silent horror film. The scholar is tracking down the last remaining copy of “the greatest horror film, sound or silent, of all time”. A “cursed” film that’s left its stars dead, crew members maimed or injured, and if rumors are to be believed might contain a clue to a string of shadowy unsolved murders. The plot then whisks the reader back to golden age Hollywood and introduces us to our ostensible main character, a studio fixer and resourceful, if unwilling gumshoe; Mary Rourke. Mary is an intoxicating mix of Eddie Mannix, Katherine Hepburn, and Harry D’Amour. As she investigates the murder of a silent film star for her studio bosses, she becomes tangled in a web of Hollywood corruption, homicide, and seemingly supernatural occurrences. She inhabits a Hollywood that’s gilded on the outside and rotten underneath and as a student of film history myself it was genuinely thrilling to experience her as a character and old Hollywood as a setting.
While the story is engrossing and even addicting at times, readers should prepare themselves for multiple timelines in “The Devil’s Playground”. And while there are times where these timelines threaten to overload the story and befuddle the reader, on the whole, Russell does a laudable job keeping the plot focused, his characters rounded, and his mystery enthralling. So, if you’re looking to add some horror to your summer reading list or want some dangerous mystery in your literary diet then definitely check out “The Devil’s Playground” by Craig Russell. It is one of those books that grabs a reader by the throat from word one and never lets go.

If you enjoyed “The Devil’s Playground” by Craig Russell as much as I did and are looking for similar titles then check out “Cold Heart Canyon” by Clive Barker, “Tinseltown: Murder, Morphine, and Madness” by William J. Mann, “The Black Dahlia” and “Perfidia” by James Ellroy, “Something More Than Night” by Kim Newman, or even “Falling Angel” and “Angel’s Inferno” by William Hjortsberg.

Not his best

I’m a huge fan of this authors prior novels but I was disappointed in this one. Story seemed to drag along and just never captured my interest. Narration was great though. I wouldn’t say novel was terrible just not very interesting.

Excellent!

Craig Russell has done it again! Along with The Devil Aspect and Hyde, The Devil's Playground is another winner!

Noir with a hint of the supernatural

Once again Russell manages to adroitly walk the line between realism and the suggestion of the supernatural, no small accomplishment. Really enjoyed this book even if the hard-bitten female detective character seemed a bit implausible for the period. Lots of interesting detail about the birth of the Hollywood film industry. Thumbs up.

Awesome

Loved the story and the performance. My favorite story as of yet! Craig did good