He knows his Hollywood history and he knows the film endured myriad tragedies and ended up lost to time. There’s also an interesting cast of characters, notably Mary Rourke who is the ‘fixer’ employed by the studio making the film. That’s a common theme and all helps construct a book that takes you on a journey into a doomed movie and an ill conceived quest. Filming has already been plagued with issues, leading to whispers that the entire project might be cursed. The characters in the book are interesting and I was engaged with some of them, main character Mary Rourke in particular.

Maybe they hadn’t even been talking about a real desert, but a set: a cinematographer’s idea of a desert. There were plenty of devotees of the psychic and weird in silent Hollywood, but these didn't come off as creepy enough. But shit, thinks Conway, what a scene: the character McTeague under a blazing sun, keylessly handcuffed to the man he has just killed, the money he has schemed and murdered for lying just beyond his reach, the last of his water spilled and evaporating from his bullet-­punctured canteen.The slenderness of her neck is emphasized by an ornate gold-and-jewel collar that completely encircles her throat, from under her chin to where it fans out over her chest and shoulders as an Usekh necklace. The type of man who glides through life, charming and beguiling his way because nature accidentally gave his features particular proportions and a certain symmetry. Ultimately, I enjoyed the Hollywood murder mystery, but found the occult and supernatural aspects to be lacking. Craig Russell’s The Devil’s Playground is a lavish production of the golden age of Hollywood… Deliciously, the cool, hard-bitten tone of Mary’s chapters is in lockstep with that of a classic noir.

The only readers who will be disappointed will be those with an appetite for gory horror, this book is a lot more subtle than that, and all the better for it. We get an inside look of how the movie studios worked back then and how the police were often on their payroll. The Devil's Playground conjures rich and riveting elements - 1920's Hollywood, a terrifying silent film, an elusive and inscrutable killer, and an eerie sequence set in the Louisiana bayou - all of which come together to create a masterful thriller. 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. Rourke turns to the maid and speaks comfortingly to her in Spanish for a moment before following the policeman up the marble stairs.The story takes place over three periods of time and the focus of the plot is a silent movie and its participants. He is also known within the closer circles of Hollywood as an equally accomplished bedroom swordsman. Plus, the fact that every chapter ends with some jeopardy or something unspoken spurs you on to read more.