{"product_id":"the-devil-raises-his-own-isbn-9781641297080","title":"The Devil Raises His Own","description":"\u003cb\u003eFrom the master of Western noir comes a provocatively entertaining crime saga set in the early days of the film industry.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis dark historical adventure captures the beginnings of the Hollywood studio system and the “blue movie” industry that grows up alongside it.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLos 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.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen 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 \u003ci\u003eThe Big Sleep\u003c\/i\u003e. 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. \u003ci\u003eThe Devil Raises His Own\u003c\/i\u003e is at once a stripped-down noir thriller and a panoramic look at Los Angeles at the beginning of motion pictures—a \u003ci\u003eBoogie Nights \u003c\/i\u003eset in the era of D.W. Griffith and Charlie Chaplin from one of the best crime novelists working today.\u003cu\u003e\u003cb\u003ePraise for \u003ci\u003eThe Devil Raises His Own\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/u\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA\u003ci\u003e Wall Street Journal \u003c\/i\u003eBest Mystery Book of 2024\u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003eA \u003ci\u003eParade\u003c\/i\u003e Best Mystery and Thriller Book of 2024\u003cbr\u003eCrimeReads Best Historical Fiction of 2024\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Phillips always adopts a wonderfully deadpan air, but beneath his black humor is a steely emotional core. \u003ci\u003eThe Devil Raises His Own\u003c\/i\u003e is a romp, but it’s also a poignant exploration of chosen families, broken homes and desperate dreams.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Sarah Weinman, \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times Book Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Outrageously vivid . . . The book is by turns raunchy, hard-boiled and comical, with a faint beam of humane sentiment peeping through the darkness . . . Punctuated by brutality and peppered with louche patois, \u003ci\u003eThe Devil Raises His Own\u003c\/i\u003e is a guilty pleasure if ever there was one.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eThe Wall Street Journal\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Phillips delivers a dark-stained noir . . . But while it frequently avails of the opportunities for violence and mayhem that the sprawling, anonymous Los Angeles boomtown creates, Phillips roots his story in superb characters whose concerns are the stuff of tragedy . . . Tough and brutal, but also poignant and tender, \u003ci\u003eThe Devil Raises His Own\u003c\/i\u003e is a novel to rank alongside Phillips’s excellent \u003ci\u003eThe Ice Harvest\u003c\/i\u003e.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eThe Irish Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Scott Phillips scored big with his Western noir debut \u003ci\u003eThe Ice Harvest. \u003c\/i\u003eHe may be back on top with [\u003ci\u003eThe Devil Raises His Own\u003c\/i\u003e] . . . [Bill and Flavia] become tangled up in a series of grisly murders and must make like Bogie and Bacall long before \u003ci\u003eThe Big Sleep \u003c\/i\u003eif they want to survive Tinseltown.” \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eParade\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Alongside the sex, the novel packs in a bumper crop of violent murders . . . Author Phillips has a nice touch with words.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eSt. Louis Post-Dispatch\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“\u003ci\u003eThe Devil Raises His Own\u003c\/i\u003e 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.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Eddie Muller, author of \u003ci\u003eDark City: The Lost World of Film Noir\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Phillips means not only to write of the early years of the 20th century but also to channel something of their sensibility. The strategy is compelling . . . At the heart of \u003ci\u003eThe Devil Raises His Own\u003c\/i\u003e is the idea of Hollywood as apotheosis of a certain kind of American ingenuity or gumption, the Southern California booster myth writ large.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eAlta\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A true California cocktail.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Angie Coiro, KALW’s \u003ci\u003eCrosscurrents\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“\u003ci\u003eThe Devil Raises His Own \u003c\/i\u003ereunites the reader with Phillips’ most famous character, Bill Ogden, who has set up a photography studio. Surrounded by men and women of dubious reputation, Ogden becomes embroiled in a series of gruesome murders . . . Phillips’ thriller uses comedic flourishes to break up the angst.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eSt. Louis Magazine\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“\u003ci\u003eThe Devil Raises His Own\u003c\/i\u003e offers readers a fresh, uncommon world in which hard, occasionally cruel events rub up cozily with big-hearted optimism: a giant bed of roses — thorns and all.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—The Shout\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Phillips captures the spirit and culture of 1916, from the growing infatuation with Hollywood to the interest in the war in Europe . . . \u003ci\u003eThe Devil Raises His Own\u003c\/i\u003e steadily moves through the characters’ struggles in a business that was still uncharted in 1916. Phillips even manages a Hollywood-esque ending — noir style.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Oline Cogdill, \u003ci\u003eSouth Florida Sun Sentinel\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“This novel is so damn charming, in spite of (or perhaps because of) its salacious historical setting—early Hollywood’s burgeoning scene of blue movies. In \u003ci\u003eThe Devil Raises His Own, \u003c\/i\u003ethe denizens of Los Angeles just before WWI intersect and part ways in a thousand different combinations for a kaleidoscopic portrait of an entire city at the precipice of extraordinary cultural significance. Phillips has crafted a picaresque tale of winners and losers, lovers and cheaters, suckers and con artists, rising starlets and drunken has-beens, dirty old men and even dirtier married women: in short, a truly American novel of epic proportions.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—CrimeReads\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Gritty and visceral . . . An absorbing read that will appeal to those who like their crime hard-hitting and lascivious.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eHistorical Novels Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Phillips’ work maintains a dark, wry sense of humor and his prose crackles in a manner akin to reading an early tabloid with a literary bent.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eRetreats from Oblivion: The Journal of NoirCon\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“The men and women who reside in the world created by Scott Phillips are a mixed bag of good, venal, and amoral. Scott Phillips’ literary strength resides in generating sympathy for each character’s narrative and their direction . . . An edgy, thrilling, and humor-tinged noir that doesn’t disappoint.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Manhattan Book Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“The characters are entertaining . . . They range from rough villains straight out of noir fiction to a naïve woman with incredulous tones, a movie star with an air of entitlement, and a drunken woman who delivers gravelly utterances.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eAudioFile Magazine\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“In \u003ci\u003eThe Ice Harvest\u003c\/i\u003e, Phillips showed he was a whiz at blending action and comedy in one unputdownable package. With this book, he succeeds brilliantly again . . . A knockout comedy of manners about sex, violence, and making blue movies in early 20th-century La La Land.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eLibrary Journal\u003c\/i\u003e, Starred Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“In rich, vividly realized vignettes, Phillips follows each cast member as a series of brutal murders sets the City of Angels on edge, leading Bill and Flavia to question their involvement in the sex industry. Phillips brilliantly marries cheeky comedy and noirish grit, taking the series in a wholly unexpected direction. James Ellroy fans will be thrilled.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e, Starred Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A smart, witty, and fleetingly obscene noir set in early Hollywood’s blue movie world . . . Phillips plays everyone’s self-interest and survival tactics for comedy as they navigate adultery, blackmail, murder, and (somehow) more . . . While the setting is largely seedy, there’s grace in Phillips’s dialogue, which hews to the style of early screwball comedies.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Shelf Awareness\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Phillips weaves these people and their stories together, much like a classic Robert Altman movie. Every character is fully formed and interesting, often funny, defined more by their flaws than virtues. They all collide toward a violent and wild night for a huge climax.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—The Hard Word\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Phillips does such a fine job of evoking early-Hollywood L.A. that we really feel like we’re visiting the place. Noir fans will be in seventh heaven, fans of novels about the early days of Hollywood will swoon, and readers who enjoy a good, solid, satisfying mystery will be delighted.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eBooklist\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Bawdy, raunchy . . . and laugh out loud outrageous . . . A thriller marked with surprises and a rare happy ending for a few of the denizens.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—BookTrib\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Phillips’s noir novel offers a bawdy, violent, funny, and affectionate fictional take on how the ‘blue movie’ industry developed in the shadow of a budding Hollywood.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—First Clue Reviews\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A richly teeming historical canvas.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eKirkus Reviews\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A bawdy, humorous delight unlike anything else.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Crime Fiction Lover\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cu\u003e\u003cb\u003ePraise for Scott Phillips\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/u\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“If you’re going to write about seedy underbellies and strange subcultures, then follow the road map created by Scott Phillips: Make it funny, make it ribald, make it memorable.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eNew York Times Book Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Taut and vicious . . . The essence of noir.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eLos Angeles Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Phillips is dark, dangerous, and important . . . Crime fiction at its best.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Michael Connelly\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“The unparalleled master of the noir anti-hero.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Megan Abbott\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Phillips’s skillful use of real historical events will resonate with fans of George Macdonald Fraser’s Flashman series.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e, Starred Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Phillips mixes real events, period turns of phrase, a noirish sensibility, and a cast of murderous women, madmen, drunks, grifters, and fools into a wildly entertaining, perhaps sui generis, slumgullion that might well be closer to reality than readers would imagine.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eBooklist\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003eScott Phillips \u003c\/b\u003eis a screenwriter, photographer and the author of seven novels and numerous short stories. His bestselling debut novel, \u003ci\u003eThe Ice Harvest\u003c\/i\u003e, was a \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e Notable Book and was adapted as a major motion picture starring John Cusack and Billy Bob Thornton. He is the winner of the California Book Award, as well as being a finalist for the Edgar Award, the Hammett Prize and the CWA Gold Dagger Award. Scott was born and raised in Wichita, Kansas, and lived for many years in France. He now lives with his wife and daughters in St. Louis, Missouri.\u003ci\u003ePROLOGUE\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e 1915\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Shortly past eight in the evening on the Wednesday before Christmas, Flavia Purcell, \u003ci\u003enée\u003c\/i\u003e Ogden, sat next to the radiator reading the current number of \u003ci\u003ePopular Mechanics\u003c\/i\u003e magazine, half-listening to the piano music accompanying the motion picture playing downstairs on the first floor. She had eaten her evening meal—a pork cutlet and some stewed turnips—a couple of hours previous, alone, after which she had chucked her husband’s uneaten portion into the trash, though they could scarcely afford the waste. Their apartment was entered from the rear of the building and was not directly accessible from the motion picture house, and when she heard him tramping arrhythmically up the back staircase, she affected her best look of frosty indifference, knowing he’d want a fight.\u003cbr\u003e      On first opening the door he leaned in too far and nearly fell, saving himself and a sliver of his dignity by holding on to the frame. “Home,” he called out.\u003cbr\u003e      She kept her eyes on the page.\u003cbr\u003e      “Dinner in the ice box?” \u003cbr\u003e      She deigned now to look up at him. His fine, thin features had once struck her as noble; now they looked churlish and petty. “What dinner?”\u003cbr\u003e      “You know goddamn well what dinner.”\u003cbr\u003e      “Yours is in the bin. You can dig it out if you want, I don’t care.”\u003cbr\u003e      He backhanded her across the face. He stumbled as he did so, and the blow was glancing, but it infuriated her and she stood up and brushed past him into the bedroom. He followed her and sat down on the sagging old bed. The springs jangled. “I’m sorry, sweetpea. I don’t know what gets into me sometimes. Forgive me?” He made little smooching sounds.\u003cbr\u003e      “Booze is what gets into you. You don’t come home after work and when you do get in you’re stiff as a plank and you smell like a still. And I work hard all day too, and yet I manage to do the shopping and fix you a nice meal and you can’t even be bothered to show up, and it’s the third time this week and I’ve had enough.”\u003cbr\u003e      He waved her off. “Go to Hades, you fishwife.” He slid off the mattress and onto the floor, and she had to suppress a laugh. “I don’t have to take this shit off of you, I know my marital rights.”\u003cbr\u003e      “Watch your language, this isn’t the saloon.” She went back into the living room with the intention of getting her coat and leaving. She might be able to use the telephone in the motion picture theater’s office to call her parents and have her father come fetch her for a day or two. \u003cbr\u003e      “Go fuck yourself,” he called from the bedroom.\u003cbr\u003e      “I won’t have talk like that in this house,” she said.\u003cbr\u003e      “You are not head of this household, missy. Soon as I get up off this floor I’m going to show you who’s the boss. And you know how I mean to do it.”\u003cbr\u003e      “You ought to know, Albert, I’ve been looking into hiring an attorney.” She hadn’t intended to tell him yet.\u003cbr\u003e      “The hell you have.” \u003cbr\u003e      Flavia had her coat on when she passed in front of the bedroom door and saw he’d arisen, pulled his revolver out of the chiffonier and was fumbling with a bullet. She went back to the coat closet and got out the baseball bat. She’d had it since the age of eight, a tomboy’s gift from a doting father, and had kept it all this time for sentimental reasons. She was still athletic at twenty-five, and when Albert came grimacing out of the bedroom holding the gun with both hands she bounded forth and in three steps was upon him, bat cocked behind her head. She swung it with her whole body, twisting at the waist as her father had taught her, and connected with his temple. There was a crunching sound that made her think she’d cracked the bat, and as he went down to the floor the gun went off, sending a bullet into the wall. \u003cbr\u003e Something sticky and warm dripped onto Ernie Kassler’s bald head. He was sitting between the machines in the projection room of the Marple Theater, cuing up the second reel of \u003ci\u003eA Woman’s Past\u003c\/i\u003e, a pretty good Nance O’Neil picture about adultery, set in a leper colony. It had been twenty minutes since the ruckus upstairs, nothing out of the ordinary for the two troublemakers, except for what sounded like a gunshot. \u003cbr\u003e      He put his finger to the substance and, examining it in the dim glow of the fifteen-watt bulb dangling naked from the booth’s ceiling, determined that it was blood. He jumped out of his chair and screeched—he was squeamish—loud enough that the pianist stopped playing, and he became aware of the auditorium full of people turning their attention from Nance’s romantic troubles and toward the projection booth. Looking up at the ceiling he saw that a goodly amount was dripping from upstairs onto the nice clean linoleum. \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003eLATIN TEACHER BLUDGEONS HER HUSBAND\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003eHe Assaulted Her on Returning Home\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003eCITY ATT’Y WILL NOT PRESS CHARGES\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003eShe Was Unhappy that He Frequented Saloons\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003eMrs. Edith Purcell, of 417 East Douglas Ave., last night struck her husband Albert in the head with a blunt object, possibly a fire-place poker, causing his death. The victim had, per Assistant City Attorney Sidney Foulston, returned home from the saloon in the Eaton hotel, where several patrons affirmed that the decedent had become belligerent and had fallen down taking a drunken swing at a companion, then become enraged at the laughter of those assembled. Mr. Foulston is satisfied with the widow’s account of the incident and believes that Purcell assaulted his wife upon his return to the domicile and that she reacted in self-defense. \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e      \u003cb\u003eAlbert Purcell, of the above address, was by all accounts a well-liked and successful certified public accountant employed by G. W. Gertz and Co. and was expected to advance there quickly. Mrs. Purcell is employed as a teacher of Latin and Greek at Wichita High School and is on break for the holidays. Mr. J. Calhoun Runcie, Assistant Superintendent of Schools, reports that her employment will be terminated regardless of whether she is charged.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e ­­­\u003cbr\u003e And thus Flavia learned, from an article in the Wichita \u003ci\u003eMorning Eagle\u003c\/i\u003e that didn’t even print her right name, that she would be unemployed as well as widowed at the New Year. She had emptied the apartment of her belongings Christmas Eve morning, leaving Albert’s behind for whomever might find them tempting, except for a prized silver pocket watch that had belonged to his grandfather and which she planned to sell. The sight of her late husband’s black, coagulated blood on the throw rug next to the bedroom door excited in her neither grief nor remorse. She wasn’t proud of the deed, but she didn’t regret it, either, and she knew she would never miss him for a second. It would have been better if she’d retained a lawyer months earlier, but she hadn’t and that was that. She decided there, just before leaving the apartment for the last time, that she would not consider herself widowed, nor even divorced, but as a woman who had never married. She would have to leave town; some things could be forgotten in such a place, but the Christmas week bludgeoning of a successful and well-liked certified public accountant was not among them.\u003cbr\u003e      Her own grandfather lived, after decades of flitting about the country, in Los Angeles, California. He had long ago taught her the rudiments of photography, and in his letters often suggested that she should come out there and live in the healthy sunshine and assist him in his studio. She had always considered the idea as a childish fantasy, but now it seemed not only a valid solution to her troubles but something of an adventure as well. \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eDear Gramps,\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e I don’t know if you have heard but I recently collapsed Albert’s cranial vault and though I am in no danger of legal jeopardy I will face considerable prejudice in Wichita regarding employment, matrimony et ca., and I believe it is time for me to leave the old hometown for fairer climes. I am hoping you were serious when you suggested I relocate to Sunny Southern California because I am heading there anon and will be counting on you for employment and lodging at least temporarily. Maybe I can find work in the pictures!\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e I will wire you details when I know them.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e Love,\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e Flavey\u003c\/i\u003e","brand":"Soho Crime","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48233654288613,"sku":"NP9781641297080","price":18.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781641297080.jpg?v=1767739001","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/the-devil-raises-his-own-isbn-9781641297080","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}