From the master of Western noir comes a provocatively entertaining crime saga set in the early days of the film industry.
This dark historical adventure captures the beginnings of the Hollywood studio system and the “blue movie” industry that grows up alongside it.
Los Angeles, 1916: Photographer Bill Ogden has opened a portrait studio in the seedy noir world of early Hollywood, where he is joined by his granddaughter, Flavia—a woman in need of a fresh start after bludgeoning her drunken, abusive husband to death in Wichita. Though his business is mainly legit, Bill finds himself brushing up against the “blue movie” porn industry growing in the shadows of the motion picture mainstream.
When a series of grisly murders take place across the city, Bill and his capable granddaughter are pulled into events as tricky and tangled as anything this side of The Big Sleep. We meet dreamers, opportunists, washed-up former stars and starry-eyed newcomers, a cast of unforgettable characters living on the margins looking to make a quick buck, launch a career, or just keep their family together. The Devil Raises His Own is at once a stripped-down noir thriller and a panoramic look at Los Angeles at the beginning of motion pictures—a Boogie Nights set in the era of D.W. Griffith and Charlie Chaplin from one of the best crime novelists working today.
Genre: Historical Mystery
This dark historical adventure captures the beginnings of the Hollywood studio system and the “blue movie” industry that grows up alongside it.
Los Angeles, 1916: Photographer Bill Ogden has opened a portrait studio in the seedy noir world of early Hollywood, where he is joined by his granddaughter, Flavia—a woman in need of a fresh start after bludgeoning her drunken, abusive husband to death in Wichita. Though his business is mainly legit, Bill finds himself brushing up against the “blue movie” porn industry growing in the shadows of the motion picture mainstream.
When a series of grisly murders take place across the city, Bill and his capable granddaughter are pulled into events as tricky and tangled as anything this side of The Big Sleep. We meet dreamers, opportunists, washed-up former stars and starry-eyed newcomers, a cast of unforgettable characters living on the margins looking to make a quick buck, launch a career, or just keep their family together. The Devil Raises His Own is at once a stripped-down noir thriller and a panoramic look at Los Angeles at the beginning of motion pictures—a Boogie Nights set in the era of D.W. Griffith and Charlie Chaplin from one of the best crime novelists working today.
Genre: Historical Mystery
Praise for this book
"The Devil Raises His Own weaves a tapestry that is ribald, affectionate, brutal, and relentlessly smutty. Scott Phillips, master of the historical American noir, offers a fictional but not implausible account of how the blue movie business developed in the shadowy margins of early Hollywood. Prudes be warned - Phillips relishes debunking the innocence of the 'good old days'; the tin-type and silver nitrate imagery he evokes is splattered with all types of bodily fluids." - Eddie Muller
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