Martin Cruz Smith (born November 3, 1942) is an American mystery novelist. He is best known for his nine-novel series (to date) on Russian investigator Arkady Renko, who was first introduced in 1981 with '' Gorky Park''.

Early life and education

Martin William Smith was born in

Reading Reading is the process of taking in the sense or meaning of letters, symbols, etc., especially by sight or touch. For educators and researchers, reading is a multifaceted process involving such areas as word recognition, orthography (spelling ...

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

to John Calhoun Smith, jazz musician and Louise Lopez, an American Indian of Pueblo descent, jazz singer and Amerindian rights militant. Martin was educated at Germantown Academy, in Germantown

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, largest city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the List of United States cities by population, sixth-largest city i ...

, Pennsylvania, then at the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

, also located in Philadelphia, and received a

Bachelor of Arts Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four year ...

degree in

creative writing Creative writing is any writing that goes outside the bounds of normal professional, journalistic, academic, or technical forms of literature, typically identified by an emphasis on narrative craft, character development, and the use of literary ...

in 1964. He is of partly

Pueblo In the Southwestern United States, Pueblo (capitalized) refers to the Native tribes of Puebloans having fixed-location communities with permanent buildings which also are called pueblos (lowercased). The Spanish explorers of northern New Spain ...

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Can ...

, Senecu del Sur and

Yaqui The Yaqui, Hiaki, or Yoeme, are a Native American people of the southwest, who speak a Uto-Aztecan language. Their homelands include the Río Yaqui valley in Sonora, Mexico, and the area below the Gila River in Arizona, Southwestern United Sta ...

ancestry.

Career

From 1965 to 1969, Smith worked as a

journalist A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalis ...

and began writing fiction in the early 1970s. He wrote two Slocum adult action Western novels under the pen name Jake Logan. Smith has also written a number of other paperback originals, including a series about a character named "The Inquisitor", a

James Bond The ''James Bond'' series focuses on a fictional British Secret Service agent created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short-story collections. Since Fleming's death in 1964, eight other authors have ...

-type agent employed by the

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; and a

science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel uni ...

novel, ''The Indians Won''. Smith wrote three novels in the Nick Carter series. '' Canto for a Gypsy'', his third novel overall and the second to feature Roman Grey, a

gypsy The Romani (also spelled Romany or Rromani , ), colloquially known as the Roma, are an Indo-Aryan ethnic group, traditionally nomadic itinerants. They live in Europe and Anatolia, and have diaspora populations located worldwide, with sign ...

art dealer An art dealer is a person or company that buys and sells works of art, or acts as the intermediary between the buyers and sellers of art. An art dealer in contemporary art typically seeks out various artists to represent, and builds relationsh ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

, was nominated for an Edgar Award. '' Nightwing'' (1977), also an Edgar nominee, was his breakthrough novel, and he adapted it for a

feature film A feature film or feature-length film is a narrative film (motion picture or "movie") with a running time long enough to be considered the principal or sole presentation in a commercial entertainment program. The term ''feature film'' originall ...

of the same name (1979). Smith is best known for his novels featuring Russian investigator Arkady Renko whom Smith introduced in '' Gorky Park'' (1981). The novel, which was called the "first thriller of the '80s" by ''

Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, ...

'', became a bestseller and won a Gold Dagger Award from the British Crime Writers' Association. Renko has since appeared in eight other novels by Smith. ''Gorky Park'' debuted at No. 2 on the "New York Times" bestseller list on April 26, 1981 and hung onto the top spot for another week. It stayed in the No. 2 position for over three months, beaten only by James Clavell's '' Noble House''. It stayed in the top 15 through November of that year. ''

Polar Star A pole star or polar star is a star, preferably bright, nearly aligned with the axis of a rotating astronomical body. Currently, Earth's pole stars are Polaris (Alpha Ursae Minoris), a bright magnitude-2 star aligned approximately with its ...

'' also claimed the No. 1 spot for two weeks on August 6, 1989. It subsequently held the No. 2 spot for over two months. During the 1990s, Smith twice won the Dashiell Hammett Award from the North American Branch of the International Association of Crime Writers. The first time was for ''

Rose A rose is either a woody perennial flowering plant of the genus ''Rosa'' (), in the family Rosaceae (), or the flower it bears. There are over three hundred species and tens of thousands of cultivars. They form a group of plants that can be ...

'' in 1996; the second time was for '' Havana Bay'' in 1999. And on September 5, 2010, he and Arkady Renko returned to the ''New York Times'' bestseller list when '' Three Stations'' debuted at No. 7 on the fiction bestsellers list. His most recent novel featuring Renko is "The Siberian Dilemma" (2019).

Pseudonym

He originally wrote under the name "Martin Smith", only to discover there were other writers with the same name. His agent asked Smith to add a third name and Smith chose Cruz, his paternal grandmother's surname.

Personal life

Smith lives in San Rafael,

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

, with his family.

Bibliography

Romano Grey books

(as Martin Smith) *'' Gypsy in Amber'' New York: Putnam, 971 *'' Canto for a Gypsy'' New York: Putnam,

972 Year 972 ( CMLXXII) was a leap year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. Events By place Byzantine Empire * Spring – Emperor John I Tzimiskes divides the Bulgarian territories, recent ...

The Inquisitor Series

(as Simon Quinn) *''The Devil in Kansas'' (1974) (The Inquisitor Series #1) *''The Last Time I Saw Hell'' (1974) (The Inquisitor Series #2) *''Nuplex Red'' (1974) (The Inquisitor Series #3) *''His Eminence, Death'' (1974) (The Inquisitor Series #4) *'' The Midas Coffin'' (1975) (The Inquisitor Series #5) *''Last Rites for the Vulture'' (1975) (The Inquisitor Series #6)

Arkady Renko books

*'' Gorky Park'' New York: Random House, 1981 *''

'' New York: Random House, 1989 *''

Red Square Red Square ( rus, Красная площадь, Krasnaya ploshchad', ˈkrasnəjə ˈploɕːətʲ) is one of the oldest and largest squares in Moscow, the capital of Russia. Owing to its historical significance and the adjacent historical build ...

'' New York: Random House, 1992 *'' Havana Bay'' New York: Random House, 1999 *'' Wolves Eat Dogs'' New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004 *'' Stalin's Ghost'' New York: Simon & Schuster, 2007 *'' Three Stations'' New York: Simon & Schuster, 2010 *'' Tatiana'' New York: Simon & Schuster, 2013 *''The Siberian Dilemma'' New York: Simon & Schuster, 2019

Other books

*''The Indians Won'' (1970) *''The Analog Bullet'' (1972) *''Inca Death Squad'' (1972) (as Nick Carter) *''The Devil's Dozen'' (1973) (as Nick Carter) *''Code Name: Werewolf'' (1973) (as Nick Carter) *''The Human Factor'' (1975) (as Simon Quinn) *''The Wilderness Family'' (1975) (as Martin Quinn) *''North to Dakota'' (a Slocum western) (1976) (as Jake Logan) *''Ride for Revenge'' (a Slocum western) (1977) (as Jake Logan) *'' Nightwing'' (1977) *''Stallion Gate'' (1986). *''

'' (1996) *''

December 6 Events Pre-1600 * 1060 – Béla I is crowned king of Hungary. *1240 – Mongol invasion of Rus': Kyiv, defended by Voivode Dmytro, falls to the Mongols under Batu Khan. *1492 – After exploring the island of Cuba for gold (wh ...

'' (2002) (also published as ''Tokyo Station'') *'' The Girl from Venice'' (2016)

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Smith, Martin Cruz 1942 births 20th-century American novelists 21st-century American novelists American male novelists American male screenwriters American mystery writers American thriller writers American alternate history writers Living people Native American novelists Novelists from Pennsylvania University of Pennsylvania alumni Writers from San Rafael, California Writers from Reading, Pennsylvania Germantown Academy alumni 20th-century American male writers 21st-century American male writers Screenwriters from California Screenwriters from Pennsylvania American people of Yaqui descent Pueblo people Yaqui people Native American people from Pennsylvania