“That 40 page chronological list I mentioned of films shot at the studio ends with his [Paul D. Marks’] name on it.”[17] He served on the boards of the Los Angeles chapters of Sisters in Crime and the Mystery Writers of America.

Lauden has said of Marks’ work: “…[it’s] almost as if the region was one of the main characters.”[18] His stories often dealt with the changing nature of the city and the displacement it causes people.

Marks’ first novel, the Shamus-Award-winning White Heat, takes place during the Rodney King Riots and deals with race and racism in the context of a mystery-thriller.

Vortex, his second full-length work, is also set in Los Angeles and updates the noir theme of a soldier returning home from war feeling alienated.

Terminal Island, the story of Japanese immigrants in a fishing community off the coast of Los Angeles and their interaction with a new white neighbor during World War II was published in Weber: The Contemporary West.

[19] Marks’ influences included Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, David Goodis, Dorothy B. Hughes, John Fante, Ross Macdonald, Walter Mosley, James Ellroy and even artist Edward Hopper.