And no one will be called “toots” ever again.

133. The Devil’s Playground – Craig Russell

A cursed film mystery set in the Golden Age of Hollywood aka when they made silent films and no one’s horrible abrasive voice got in the way of their stardom. We follow Mary Rourke, a fixer for Carbine International, as she does cover ups and ends up investigating one of the cover ups which turns out to be a cover up of a cover up, but, there’s another twist to it. Rourke’s story happens in 1927 and parallels a Dr. Conway looking for the one remaining print that may or may not exist of The Devil’s Playground, supposedly the most horrific of horror films, in 1967.

This is a mystery with lots of twists and turns and it’s intriguing the whole way through. I had to remind myself “the war” in this one would have been World War I, because it is such well trodden territory to have Hollywood in post-World War II USA, and that unto itself made things a little more interesting. Basically I was reading about Hollywood when my grandma was 4 and the Great Depression was about to hit and nobody knows that’s going to happen. It’s not entirely relevant, but it is the time between the two major timelines. I kept thinking, this isn’t going to stay for a couple reasons, not just people having good looks and terrible voices…or being cursed. I really enjoyed the characters of Rourke and her police buddy Kendrick in particular.

 

If anyone heard Merricat and Peregrine’s voices on film, they would have been very beloved across the wide world.