The Devil's Playground

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This story is told in third person in multiple timelines from the swamps of 1893 Louisiana to 1927 Hollywood and an old hotel in the desert of 1967. She was the star of the 'cursed' The Devil's Playground, billed as the most spectacular horror movie of all time, but one which keeps getting hit by tragic mishap after mishap. The secrets and lies and the dichotomy of the what the public saw and the lives as they were truly lived by the stars that they all idolised. 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. He was sure Sudden Lake was going to be the next big thing—­that and the movies—­so he built the hotel with a movie theater.

That book was excellent and really brought the golden era of film to life with relatable characters, easy-reading dialogue and a much smoother flow than The Devil's Playground offered. It is actually three stories in one and they all work well as the reader tries to figure out how they are related.Flashback again, to the bayous of Louisiana in 1893 and 1907, where nasty things happen to people who trifle with Hippolyta Cormier and her daughter, Anastasie. That anticipation and willingness to expect the unexpected and to embrace the decadence and egos that typified 1920’s Hollywood. As she passes, she looks into the parked police wagon and, seeing it is empty, walks on through the open gates and up to the house.

In a narrative that goes back and forth in time, there are threads that go back to 1897 and the Dahlman and Darke Magic Lantern show in Kansas, and in 1907, in the verdant malevolent swamps of Louisiana, there are deaths as rumours of witches, voodoo and zombies abound. I just don’t understand why you gave it all up, back then, at the height of it all—­why you went to such lengths to disappear.He has won the CWA Dagger in the Library and the McIlvanney Prize (for which he has been shortlisted another twice), and has previously been shortlisted for the CWA Golden Dagger, the Ellis Peters Historical Dagger, and the SNCF Prix Polar in France. Out there, in the backswamp, the water slid sleek and black into darkening mists; pale wraiths of Spanish moss hung shroud like from the cypresses; the shadows were denser, fuller. He obviously had his thesaurus close to hand while he was writing this, because he never used the clear and simple word when he could find the more obscure and - I assume he felt - important-sounding big or complex word instead. He takes a step toward her, and a dog—­a huge, dark beast of a dog—­emerges from doorway shadow and sniffs the air as if it has caught the odor of fresh meat. There are satanic rituals, black magic and ancient fears and beliefs in play as the filming takes place.

It is a bizarre and intimidating sight: black and jagged, like some dark malignancy growing on the bleached skin of the desert… Christ, he thinks, it’s like a movie set. I probably helps that I have always thought the Golden Age of Hollywood was interesting and so very glamourous. The second timeline whisks us further back into the past, to the golden age of classic Hollywood cinema. Another book I didn't finish but shall come back to later once I forget some of the details and only because I know what happenes in the end and this book is filled with wild plot twists and I am here for the mess!

There are some chapters set in the more modern (relatively speaking) 1960s which go someway to explaining away the truth of the story, and those scenes alone create a kind of tension, an uneasiness that it’s hard to identify but even harder to ignore. Between them, they have three carryalls filled with paperwork, letters, photographs, address books, and a diary. Witch Hippolyta Cormier and her daughter Anastasie live in the swamp, and the locals believe Hippolyta has a “devil’s fingerprint” birthmark on her left cheek. Yes, this is a novel, but it transports you back in time and with such realism that you feel that these events actually happened. The white shields of wall are broken by vibrant modern paintings and pieces of hacienda-style furniture, the jacaranda wood twisting and rippling like dark muscle and sinew.

Forty years later, Paul Conway, a film historian and journalist, is hired to track down what might just be the only copy of the film in existence.

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. He also tosses out a bit of humor, giving a hulking studio heavyweight the nickname Golem, a nod to Paul Wegener’s partially lost 1915 film.