Malmont, Paul 1966-

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Malmont, Paul 1966-

PERSONAL:

Born 1966. Education: New York University, graduated; also attended Interlochen Arts Academy and studied opera singing.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Brooklyn, NY. E-mail—paulmalmont@gmail.com.

CAREER:

Filmmaker. Copy director for a New York City advertising agency. Contributor to films, including The Fisher King, Honeymoon in Vegas, The Last Action Hero, Hudson Hawk, and Bonfire of the Vanities.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Awards from Communication Arts and The One Show.

WRITINGS:

The Chinatown Death Cloud Peril (novel), Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 2006.

Author of short film The King of the Magicians. Writer for VH1.com, Microsoft, and the Cartoon Network.

SIDELIGHTS:

A New York City advertising copy director who has also been involved in the making of such films as Honeymoon in Vegas and The Fisher King, Paul Malmont thrilled critics with his debut novel, The Chinatown Death Cloud Peril. A loving homage to the pulp novels of yesteryear, the story combines the characteristics of the pulp genre with a great deal of name dropping. Malmont populates his story with characters named after the creators of the classic horror, science fiction, and mystery pulps, including Walter Gibson, the creator of "The Shadow," Lester Dent, who wrote the "Doc Savage" pulps, L. Ron Hubbard, Robert Heinlein, Louis L'Amour, and Chester Himes, among others. The novel begins in New York City with Dent, Gibson, and Hubbard arguing about what pulp fiction really is. Before long, they themselves are involved in a pulp-style story. Gibson and Hubbard suspect that horror writer H.P. Lovecraft was actually murdered, and they set off to find the killer. Their investigation leads them to New York City's Chinatown, where a gang member in a sealed and guarded room has somehow still been murdered by a rival gang. This mystery is connected to a diabolical plan to kill thousands of people with poisonous gas enclosed in steel drums. Meeting other famous people along the way, ranging from Orson Welles to Harry Houdini, the author-heroes go on a dangerous mission to find the drums before it is too late. Bruce DeSilva described the tale on the SF Gate Web site as an "improbable, enormously entertaining story." Critics applauded Malmont's ability to mimic the pulp style he honors with such deftness. "This high-energy novel is written with a confident hand by an author who understands what it takes to write a good story," asserted Carol Memmott in USA Today. Declaring the novel to be a "startling read," a Publishers Weekly contributor praised it as "certainly the best book of its kind in many years."