The Devil’s Playground set mainly in Hollywood – Craig Russell

Submitted: 11th October 2023

The Devil’s Playground

This is one of those novels that you have to read slowly and savour it. There’s lots of information that builds up to a dramatic conclusion. You may not think that a clue is a clue but there is a trail of clues to this that are hidden in plain sight. It’s a gripping ride and a very disturbing one too….

This is set in 1920s Hollywood and it’s about the making of the most terrifying silent film ever made, and a deadly search for the single copy rumoured still to exist…………..

BookTrail the locations in The Devil’s Playground

The Devil's Playground set mainly in Hollywood - Craig RussellThe Devil's Playground set mainly in Hollywood - Craig Russell

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BookTrail the locations in The Devil’s Playground

A novel to transport you to Hollywood and beyond

BookTrail the locations in The Devil’s Playground

This is very cleverly done. A mystery that coils itself around you like that snake on the cover. A gripping and twisty plot and some of the most colourful characters you are ever likely to meet.

I loved the locations – from 1920s Hollywood to the dust bowl of Kansas and a small settlement in rural Lousiana. Three timelines and three locations – settings ranged from a dusty old hotel with a hidden basement to the film studios of the 1920s to a small village where one women is deemed to be a witch.

Each storyline was as gripping as the next. The novel does jump a fair bit so keep your concentration but let me tell you, the pay off is worth it!

1920s Hollywood and those posh mansions in the Hollywood hills are wonderfully evocative. We see movie stars, beautiful homes with sweeping driveways and a deadly murder scene. One character is a Hollywood fixer who makes all bad press go away and it was fascinating to see how the whole ‘sweeping under the carpet’ thing worked.

The Devil's Playground set mainly in Hollywood - Craig RussellThe Devil's Playground set mainly in Hollywood - Craig Russell

BookTrail the locations in The Devil’s Playground

The 1920s was an excellent setting as there’s the glitz and glam together with the speakeasys and prohibition. Norma Carlton is a film star and she’s just committed suicide….or has she? She was the star of the ‘cursed’ The Devil’s Playground, billed as the biggest and most well known horror movie of all time. It’s also one of the most infamous – as the shoot and time since has been marred with one mishap after another.

The mystery behind this movie and the search for the only surviving copy had me gripped. There was a cloak of secrecy behind it all and it was thrilling to read. When I headed back to Kansas and the Dahlman and Darke Magic Lantern show and discovered just what the movie The Devil’s Playground might contain, I was biting my fingernails. By the time, I had visited that small swamp in Louisiana and been to Sudden Lake and met the characters there, my fingernails were no more.

By the end, the pace ramps up and all those separate threads unravel and reform to paint a fascinating picture of horror, mistrust, secrecy and darkness. There’s a cinematic feel to this and I was suitably shaken but totally gripped.

There’s something about the only copy of a horror movie and the search for it …..would you be brave enough?