The Devil's Playground, Russell - B+

                      This fabulous novel is set in 1927 Hollywood, and somewhere in the California desert forty years later. Mary Rourke is a fixer for Carbine Studios and is called to the house of Norma Carlton, the studio's most important actress and star of 'The Devil's Playground.' Norma is dead, and Mary begins the process of cleansing the scene, bribing the cops, and hustling the body away. Having your star kill herself is bad for business. Later, Mary realizes Norma was murdered but now it's too late to call the police. The studio head asks her to look into the mess. The studio returns to finishing 'The Devil's Playground,' an epic horror movie set in medieval France. As Rourke delves into the investigation, her sights set on Norma's co-star, Robert Huston and his wife, Veronica Stratton. They do not appear to live as husband and wife, and may be two runaways from the deep South with a sordid and violent history. People around them seem to keep dying. The final scene of 'The Devil's Playground' is the burning of the city, and it goes terribly awry, killing innocent extras and burning more than planned.  A few weeks later, Veronica Stratton and the rest of the conspirators kill the studio chief, burn all but one copy of the film, and disappear.

                     Four decades later, a film professor drives to the desert because his research leads him to believe that the only surviving copy of the legendary film may be at the studio's long abandoned hotel. He is met by an older woman, still uniquely beautiful, who invites him in and shows him the film. It is the masterpiece it has always been rumored to be.  However, even decades later, it has a sinister outcome.

                     It is difficult to write up a narrative for books that move back and forth to different eras. This book, however, is near perfect with a few plotting flaws at the end, and better than my post implies. I recommend it for the thriller aficionados.