PAUL D . MARKS SPOTLIGHT INTERVIEW
PAUL D . MARKS SPOTLIGHT INTERVIEW
Author Paul D . Marks is an L . A . native , literally born in the heart of Hollywood . You can ’ t get much more “ L . A .” than that . He is the multi award-winning author of the Shamus Award-Winning mysterythriller White Heat , Marks ’ story and upcoming book Broken Windows .
Paul , what was it like to grow up in L . A .? Have you seen many changes ?
L os Angeles is a harsh mistress . She grabs you and doesn ’ t let go . Just ask Raymond Chandler or James Ellroy . Or any of the countless other authors who ’ ve been seduced by her charms , though I ’ m not putting myself in the same league as them . But I am old enough to have grown up in Los Angeles when both Raymond Chandler ’ s L . A . and Chandler himself were still around . When I was a kid , L . A . still resembled the city of Chandler ’ s “ mean streets ,” Ross MacDonald ’ s Lew Archer and Cain ’ s Double Indemnity . In fact , I grew up in a Spanishstyle house very much like the one that Barbara Stanwyck lives in in the movie version of Double Indemnity . There ’ s definitely been a lot of changes since then . L . A .’ s gone from a large , spread out “ small ” town to a great cosmopolitan city .
L . A . was a film noir town for a film noir kid . And that certainly had an influence on me and my writing . And a lot of my writing involves Los Angeles , not just as a location but almost as a character in its own right . Of course , we ’ re all influenced by our childhoods , where we grew up and the people we knew . And those things , whether conscious or unconscious ,
tend to bubble to the surface in our writing like the black pitch bubbling up from the La Brea Tar Pits .
What happened in the mid-90s that inspired your latest thrilling novel ?
My new mystery-thriller , Broken Windows , is the sequel to my Shamus Award- Winning novel White Heat . The explosion of the 1992 L . A . riots was the inspiration for White Heat . Publishers Weekly called it a “ taut crime yarn ”. Broken Windows takes place a couple years later in 1994 during California ’ s notorious anti-illegal alien Proposition 187 campaign . While that storm rages , a young woman climbs to the top of the famous Hollywood sign — and jumps to her death . An undocumented day laborer is murdered . And a disbarred and desperate lawyer in Venice Beach places an ad in a local paper that says : “ Will Do Anything For Money .” P . I . Duke Rogers and his very unPC partner , Jack , have to figure it out and put it all together .
Broken Windows drops September 10 , 2018 from Down & Out Books . And you might be able to get an Advanced Reader ’ s Copy at NetGalley . It ’ s FREE , you just have to agree to their terms and agree to give a fair and honest review . Their terms
SUMMER 2018
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