Martin Cruz Smith
Martin Cruz Smith (né Martin William Smith, later changed his middle name to Cruz after his grandmother's surname) was born in Reading, Pennsylvania, in 1942. Educated at the University of Pennsylvania, Smith received his Bachelor of Arts in 1964. From 1965 to 1969 he worked as a journalist, and began writing fiction in the early 1970s. His first mystery, featuring a Gypsy art dealer in New York named Roman Grey, Gypsy in Amber (1971), was nominated for an Edgar Award. His second book, Nightwing, was made into a movie.
However, his main objective in writing was to write a book with a Russian cop as the main character rather than an American one. In 1981, Smith wrote Gorky Park, featuring Arkady Renko, which was called the "thriller of the '80s" by Time Magazine. It became a bestseller and won a Golden Dagger Award from the British Crime Writers Association. Renko has appeared in four other novels by Smith, Polar Star, Red Square, Havana Bay, and Wolves Eat Dogs.
Smith wrote at least one Slocum western under the pen name Jake Logan in the 1970's. The Slocum books are adult action westerns. Smith also wrote a number of other paperback originals, including a series about a character named 'The Inquisitor,' who can be described as a James Bond-type agent employed by the Vatican.
Martin Cruz Smith now lives in California with his wife and three children.
Notes on Style
Smith's protagonists and adversaries, particularly in the Arkady Renko series, seem to follow a pattern, which the novels Rose and Canto for a Gypsy also demonstrate. Of particular note is the theme of an implacable foe who sometimes, at the end, plays out his obsessions to the advantage of the protagonist, while nominally friendly characters emerge as corrupt and evil.
Thus in the first Renko novel, Gorky Park, the foe is Pribluda, a KGB operative, who is eventually portrayed as a driven but sympathetic character. In the later novel, Havana Bay, Renko is in Cuba to investigate Pribluda's death, but is faced by a murderous Cuban practitioner of Santeria, whose final acts, driven by his religion, take care of the real villains. In Polar Star, the second Renko novel, Karp Korobetz, whom Renko had previously sent to jail, is the ambivalent foe. In the following novel, Red Square, it is a Chechen gangster, initially bent on killing Renko to avenge his father.
The foe may be driven by ideology, religion, or ethnic prejudice, as in Canto for a Gypsy where a Hungarian shows deep prejudice against Rom (Gypsies), while revelling in their relationship to his culture. In Stallion Gate the protagonist is a Native American soldier with a record of drunkenness, while the foe is the racist and anti-Semitic Captain Augustino, bent on framing Robert Oppenheimer, who is also a character in the novel.
Bibliography
- The Indians Won (1970)
- Gypsy in Amber (1971)
- Canto for a Gypsy (1972)
- Analog Bullet (1972)
- Inca Death Squad (1972) (As Nick Carter)
- The Devil's Dozen (1973) (As Nick Carter)
- The Devil in Kansas (1974) (The Inquisitor Series #1) (As Simon Quinn)
- The Last Time I Saw Hell (1974) (The Inquisitor Series #2) (As Simon Quinn)
- Nuplex Red (1974) (The Inquisitor Series #3) (As Simon Quinn)
- His Eminence, Death (1974) (The Inquisitor Series #4) (As Simon Quinn)
- The Midas Coffin (1975) (The Inquisitor Series #5) (As Simon Quinn)
- The Human Factor (1975) (As Simon Quinn)
- The Wilderness Family (1975) (As Martin Quinn)
- Last Rites for the Vulture (1975) (The Inquisitor Series #6) (As Simon Quinn)
- Nightwing (1977)
- Ride for Revenge (Slocum Westerns) (as Jake Logan)
- Gorky Park (1981) (The Arkady Renko Series #1)
- Stallion Gate (1986)
- Polar Star (1989) (The Arkady Renko Series #2)
- Red Square (1992) (The Arkady Renko Series #3)
- Rose (1996)
- Havana Bay (1999) (The Arkady Renko Series #4)
- December 6 (2002) (also published as Tokyo Station)
- Wolves Eat Dogs (2004) (The Arkady Renko Series #5)