The Devil's Playground: Where horror is silent . . .

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FROM THE WINNER OF THE 2021 McILVANNEY AWARD COMES ANOTHER GRIPPING, COMPLEX MASTERPIECE . . .

'Superb! The Devil's Playground is imagination on steroids... breathtaking!' Jeffrey Deaver

'Addictive. . . the most sheerly entertaining novel I've raced through in at least a year. . . fresh, forceful, elegant but wild' --A.J. Finn, No.1 New York Times bestselling author of The Woman in the Window

'Craig Russell walks a razor's edge between gothic suspense and horror. . . a masterful thriller' -- Lincoln Child, No.1 New York Times bestselling author

'When it comes to Gothic crime, Craig Russell is peerless. Absolutely stunning.' - M W Craven

FROM CWA DAGGER AND DOUBLE McILVANNEY AWARD WINNER CRAIG RUSSELL COMES ANOTHER DARK, GRIPPING MASTERPIECE . . .

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.

1927: 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.

1967: 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 exist. His search takes him deep into the Mojave Desert, to an isolated hotel that hasn't changed in forty years but harbours only one occupant-and a shocking secret.

Separated by decades, both Rourke and Conway begin to suspect that the real Devil's Playground is in fact Hollywood itself.

Praise for The Devil's Playground

'Horrifying, mesmerising, beautifully imagined. The Devil's Playground is Craig Russell at his unrivalled best' Chris Whittaker

'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

'A blend of murder, noir, and horror set against a fascinating time-trip through Hollywood. The Devil's Playground is totally engaging' Kathy Reichs, New York Times bestselling author of the Temperanc

Author Bio

Craig Russell's novels have been published in twenty-five languages, five have been made into major films in Germany, in one of which he has a cameo role as a detective. He has won the CWA Dagger in the Library, is the only author to have won the McIlvanney Prize twice, and has previously been shortlisted for the CWA Golden Dagger, the Ellis Peters Historical Dagger, and the SNCF Prix Polar in France. He is also the only non-German to have been awarded the Polizeistern - the Hamburg Police's Police Star.