The Devil's Playground

Hollywood, 1927. Mary Rourke works as a fixer for the studio Carbine International, and her job is to bury scandals before they reach the press. Her newest problem is the death of Norma Carlton, the star of a film called The Devil's Playground. Norma's murder has been staged to look like suicide.

Mary is told to investigate quietly. She cannot keep it quiet for long: more people die, and the tabloids begin to talk of a cursed picture.

A second strand jumps ahead to 1967. Film scholar Paul Conway drives out to a decaying hotel in the Mojave Desert. He is looking for the last surviving print of a movie some regard as the greatest horror film ever made.

Older material runs beneath both timelines: the Louisiana bayous of the 1890s, and the witchcraft practised by Hippolyta Cormier and her daughter. Three periods are woven together into historical horror with an occult thread, set in the film business. The mood is atmospheric and stylish, with a growing suspicion that Hollywood itself is the place the title names.