Martin Cruz Smith (né Martin William Smith, later changed his middle name to Cruz after his grandmother's surname) was born in Reading, Pennsylvania, USA in 1942. Educated at the University of Pennsylvania, Smith received his BA 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. Name change is a basic legal act that is recognized in practically all legal systems to allow an individual the opportunity to adopt a name other than the name given by birth, marriage, or adoption. ... City of Reading seal Reading (pronounced red - ing) is the county seat of Berks County, Pennsylvania. ... This article is about the year. ... The University of Pennsylvania (Penn is the nickname used by the university itself; UPenn is also common) is a private, nonsectarian, research university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. ... A Bachelor of Arts (B.A. or A.B., from the Latin Artium Baccalaureus) is an undergraduate academic degree awarded for a course or program in the arts and/or sciences. ... For the Nintendo 64 emulator, see 1964 (Emulator). ... 1965 (MCMLXV) was a common year starting on Friday (link goes to calendar). ... 1969 (MCMLXIX) was a common year starting on Wednesday For other uses, see Number 1969. ... This article does not cite its references or sources. ... Writing may refer to two activities: the inscribing of characters on a medium, with the intention of forming words and other constructs that represent language or record information, and the creation of material to be conveyed through written language. ... The Three Graces, here in a painting by Sandro Botticelli, were the goddesses of charm, beauty, nature, human creativity and fertility in Greek mythology. ... The 1970s in its most obvious sense refers to the decade between 1970 and 1979. ... In modern colloquial English, a mystery is a subgenre of detective fiction (see mystery fiction). ... The Roma people (pronounced rahma, singular Rom, sometimes Rroma, and Rrom) along with the closely related Sinti people are commonly known as Gypsies in English, and as Tsigany in most of Europe. ... State nickname: The Empire State Official languages English Capital Albany Largest city New York City Governor George Pataki (R) Senators Charles Schumer (D) Hillary Clinton (D) Area  - Total  - % water Ranked 27th 141,205 km² 13. ... 1971 (MCMLXXI) is a common year starting on Friday (click for link to calendar). ... The Edgar Allan Poe Awards (popularly called the Edgars), named after Edgar Allan Poe, are presented every year by the Mystery Writers of America. ... Films are produced by recording actual people and objects with cameras, or by creating them using animation techniques and/or special effects. ...

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 . The word cop can be:- A slang word for policeman, perhaps from Old French caper, to catch. ... 1981 (MCMLXXXI) is a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Gorky Park is a mystery novel written by Martin Cruz Smith set in the Soviet Union, primarily in Moscow. ... Arkady Renko is a detective character found in five of Martin Cruz Smiths books. ... (Clockwise from upper left) Time magazine covers from May 7, 1945; July 25, 1969; December 31, 1999; September 14, 2001; and April 21, 2003. ... A bestseller is a book that is identified as extremely popular by its inclusion on a list of top-sellers. ... Polar Star is a Crime Novel by Martin Cruz Smith, set in the Soviet Union in the late 1980s. ... Polar Star is a Crime Novel by Martin Cruz Smith, set in the Soviet Union in the 1991. ...

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 an 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 KGB emblem and motto: The sword and the shield KGB (transliteration of КГБ) is the Russian-language acronym for the Committee for State Security, (Russian: â–¶(?); transliteration: Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti), and was the umbrella organisation name for (i) the principal Soviet internal Security Agency, (ii) the principal... Lukumí or Regla de Ocha, most widely known as Santeria, is a set of related religious systems that fuse Catholic beliefs with traditional Yorùbá beliefs. ... Chechen can mean: Chechen people, an ethnic group Chechen language Related to Chechnya This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ...

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. ROM, Rom, or rom may refer to: Roma (people), whose members are called Rom (or Gypsy) Romany language (ISO 639 alpha-2, rom) Royal Ontario Museum Rom (Star Trek), the name of a Ferengi from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. ... Assiniboin Boy, an Atsina Native Americans in the United States (also Indians, American Indians, First Americans, Indigenous Peoples, Aboriginal Peoples, Aboriginal Americans, Amerindians, Amerinds, or Original Americans) are those indigenous peoples within the territory that is now encompassed by the continental United States, and their descendants in modern times. ... J. Robert Oppenheimer, father of the atomic bomb, served as the first director of Los Alamos National Laboratory, beginning in 1943. ...

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 (1977) (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) (apa Tokyo Station)
• Wolves Eat Dogs (2004) (The Arkady Renko Series #5)

External links

• Official Site
• Read Reviews On Books By Martin Cruz Smith
• Audio interviews with Martin Cruz Smith - RealAudio