The Devil Raises His Own

(Paperback)

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From the author of The Ice Harvest comes a provocatively entertaining crime saga set in the early days of the film industry.

An Amazon Editors' Pick: Best Mystery, Thriller & Suspense CrimeReads Most Anticipated Crime Books of the Summer

'Phillips is dark, dangerous, and important . . . Crime fiction at its best.' Michael Connelly

'Phillips always adopts a wonderfully deadpan air, but beneath his black humor is a steely emotional core. The Devil Raises His Own is a romp, but it's also a poignant exploration of chosen families, broken homes and desperate dreams.' Sarah Weinman, The New York Times Book Review

This dark historical adventure captures the beginnings of the Hollywood studio system and the 'blue movie' industry that grows up alongside it.

Los Angeles, 1916: Photographer Bill Ogden has opened a portrait studio in seedy Hollywood, where he is joined by his granddaughter, Flavia a woman in need of a fresh start after bludgeoning her drunken, abusive husband to death. Though his business is mainly legit, Bill finds himself brushing up against the porn industry growing in the shadows of the motion picture mainstream.

When a series of grisly murders take place across the city, Bill and his granddaughter are pulled into events as tricky and tangled as anything this side of The Big Sleep. We meet a cast of unforgettable characters living on the margins looking to make a quick buck, launch a career, or just keep their family together. The Devil Raises His Own is a stripped-down noir thriller and a panoramic look at Los Angeles at the beginning of motion pictures a Boogie Nights set in the era of D.W. Griffith and Charlie Chaplin from one of the best crime novelists working today.

Reviews

'Phillips always adopts a wonderfully deadpan air, but beneath his black humor is a steely emotional core. The Devil Raises His Own is a romp, but its also a poignant exploration of chosen families, broken homes and desperate dreams.' Sarah Weinman, The New York Times Book Review

'Outrageously vivid...The book is by turns raunchy, hard-boiled and comical, with a faint beam of humane sentiment peeping through the darkness...Punctuated by brutality and peppered with louche patois, The Devil Raises His Own is a guilty pleasure if ever there was one.' The Wall Street Journal

'Phillips delivers a dark-stained noir . . . But while it frequently avails of the opportunities for violence and mayhem that the sprawling, anonymous Los Angeles boomtown creates, Phillips roots his story in superb characters whose concerns are the stuff of tragedy . . . Tough and brutal, but also poignant and tender, The Devil Raises His Own is a novel to rank alongside Phillips's excellent The Ice Harvest.' The Irish Times

'Alongside the sex, the novel packs in a bumper crop of violent murders . . . Author Philips has a nice touch with words.' St. Louis Post-Dispatch

'The Devil Raises His Own weaves a tapestry that is ribald, affectionate, brutal, and relentlessly smutty. Scott Phillips, master of the historical American noir, offers a fictional but not implausible account of how the blue movie business developed in the shadowy margins of early Hollywood. Prudes be warned - Phillips relishes debunking the innocence of the 'good old days'; the tin-type and silver nitrate imagery he evokes is splattered with all types of bodily fluids.' Eddie Muller, author of Dark City: The Lost World of Film Noir

'Phillips means not only to write of the early years of the 20th century but also to channel something of their sensibility. The strategy is compelling . . . At the heart of The Devil Raises His Own is the idea of Hollywood as apotheosis of a certain kind of American ingenuity or gumption, the Southern California booster myth writ large.' Alta

'A true California cocktail.' Angie Coiro, KALW's Crosscurrents

'The Devil Raises His Own reunites the reader with Phillips' most famous character, Bill Ogden, who has set up a photography studio. Surrounded by men and women of dubious reputation, Ogden becomes embroiled in a series of gruesome murders . . . Phillips' thriller uses comedic flourishes to break up the angst.' St. Louis Magazine

'The Devil Raises His Own offers readers a fresh, uncommon world in which hard, occasionally cruel events rub up cozily with big-hearted optimism: a giant bed of roses -- thorns and all.' The Shout

'Phillips captures the spirit and culture of 1916, from the growing infatuation with Hollywood to the interest in the war in Europe . . . The Devil Raises His Own steadily moves through the characters' struggles in a business that was still uncharted in 1916. Phillips even manages a Hollywood-esque ending -- noir style.' Oline Cogdill, South Florida Sun Sentinel

'Taut and vicious . . . The essence of noir.' Los Angeles Times

'Phillips is dark, dangerous, and important . . . Crime fiction at its best.' Michael Connelly

'The unparalleled master of the noir anti-hero.' Megan Abbott

'Phillips's skillful use of real historical events will resonate with fans of George Macdonald Fraser's Flashman series.' Publishers Weekly, Starred Review

'Phillips mixes real events, period turns of phrase, a noirish sensibility, and a cast of murderous women, madmen, drunks, grifters, and fools into a wildly entertaining, perhaps sui generis, slumgullion that might well be closer to reality than readers would imagine.' Booklist

Author Bio

Scott Phillips is a screenwriter, photographer and the author of seven novels and numerous short stories. His bestselling debut novel, The Ice Harvest, was a New York Times Notable Book and was adapted as a film starring John Cusack and Billy Bob Thornton. He is the winner of the California Book Award, as well as being a finalist for the Edgar Award, the Hammett Prize and the CWA Gold Dagger Award. Scott was born and raised in Wichita, Kansas, and lived for many years in France. He now lives with his wife and daughters in St. Louis, Missouri.