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Boston Globe
6 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
Martin Cruz Smith, best-selling author of ‘Gorky Park,' dies at 82
Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up By the time he wrote 'Gorky Park' (1981), Mr. Smith had spent years toiling in obscurity, churning out paperback westerns, thrillers, and suspense novels, most of them written under pseudonyms like Jake Logan and Simon Quinn. There were times, he said, when he could 'only be accurately described as a schlockmeister.' How else to account for novels like 'North to Dakota,' which 'started off,' he remembered, 'with the hero strangling a chimpanzee'? Advertisement In those days, Mr. Smith usually took six to eight weeks to finish a novel. But when he slowed down, as he did with 'Gorky Park,' he wrote with a far more elegant and refined voice, crafting books that were admired for their psychological acuity, literary sophistication, and rich depiction of faraway cultures (Russia's, in particular) that few Americans knew firsthand. Advertisement The culmination of about eight years of work, 'Gorky Park' was acclaimed as a masterpiece of the crime genre, impressing critics with its shrewd and incorruptible protagonist - a Russian Sam Spade - and its carefully drawn portrait of Soviet-era Moscow. The book 'reminds you just how satisfying a smoothly turned thriller can be,' wrote New York Times reviewer Peter Andrews. In The Washington Post, former Moscow correspondent Peter Osnos declared that 'Gorky Park' 'is to ordinary suspense stories what John le Carré is to spy novels. The action is gritty, the plot complicated, the overriding quality is intelligence.' In broad strokes, the novel followed the contours of a classic work of crime fiction. A hard-bitten police investigator, Renko, is enlisted to solve a triple murder, with three mutilated bodies found in Moscow's Gorky Park. The victims were shot at close range and had their finger tips and faces sliced off, concealing their identities. The case took Renko around the world (including to Staten Island), even as Moscow remained the book's gravitational center. For many critics, Mr. Smith's signature achievement was the way he conjured Russian society on the page, writing about apparatchiks and propagandists, the merits of vodka (there are two kinds, 'good and very good'), and the relationship between ordinary street detectives and their counterparts in the KGB. Improbably, Mr. Smith spent no more than two weeks in the country in 1973. (Mr. Smith was denied a visa when he attempted to return.) He spoke no Russian and had no interpreter, although he took voluminous notes and made sketches of the sort of people and places he planned to write about. Advertisement 'More perhaps than any other recent work of American fiction,' Osnos wrote, 'this one conveys a feeling for the Soviet Union, its capital, its moods and its people. … I spent weeks hanging around Soviet courtrooms and in Smith's portrayals, I smell the musty aroma; I can see the faces; I can hear the voices.' The novel won the Gold Dagger, a top honor from the Crime Writers' Association of Britain, and was adapted into a 1983 Hollywood movie starring William Hurt as Renko. 'I thought it was dreadful,' Mr. Smith said of the film. In the Soviet Union, authorities condemned the novel in spite of its heroic Russian protagonist. The book was banned, although it found an audience thanks to dissidents and intellectuals who managed to distribute copies underground. 'Even scientist and academician Andrei Sakharov was a big fan,' said Alex Levin, a Russian émigré who helped Mr. Smith with his research, in a 2005 interview with the Guardian. Mr. Smith, a former journalist, said that he was driven by a desire to find out 'what is happening in the Soviet Union.' His subsequent Renko novels used history as a backdrop, following the detective through the Soviet Union's collapse (in 'Red Square'), the Chechen War ('Stalin's Ghost'), and Russia's invasion of Ukraine ('Hotel Ukraine'). Other installments invoked the Chernobyl nuclear disaster ('Wolves Eat Dogs') and took inspiration from the 2006 assassination of Anna Politkovskaya, a Russian investigative journalist ('Tatiana'). To research the books, Mr. Smith made return trips to Russia, traveled to Ukraine and Cuba, and spent three weeks aboard a Soviet factory ship in the Bering Sea. He was kicked off, he said, after the ship's political officer located his name in a Soviet list of 'foreign agents provocateurs to avoid.' Advertisement Mr. Smith went on to spend what he described as an 'endless' week on an American trawler, 'looking at the fog.' Still, he was happy to be conducting research in-person, later saying: 'There are things you experience that are so basic that people just don't tell you. It's a little bit like people telling you about going to sea - nobody bothers to tell you that it is salty. They always overlook the details.' The second of three children, Martin William Smith was born in Reading, Pa., on Nov. 3, 1942. He adopted his pseudonym, incorporating his maternal grandmother's name, Cruz, after realizing there were a half-dozen other 'Martin Smiths' trying to get published. His father, who came from a Scottish Episcopal family, was a jazz saxophonist and photographer. His mother, a descendant of Pueblo and Yaqui Indians, was a former beauty queen and a nightclub singer, once billed as 'Princess Louisa, the All-American Songbird.' The family moved frequently before settling outside Philadelphia, where his father found a job at the Budd Co., a metal fabricator. Mr. Smith, who was known as Bill, was educated at the nearby Germantown Academy. He was a poor student, in his telling, barely making it in to the University of Pennsylvania, where he studied sociology before failing a statistics paper and switching to creative writing. After graduating in 1964, he spent a few years in journalism, with jobs at the Associated Press, a local television station, and the Philadelphia Daily News. He also had a brief stint editing For Men Only, a New York-based magazine that taught him the importance of brevity. Advertisement 'We wasted no words getting someone through a door; we couldn't fool around with Henry Jamesian language,' he told the Guardian. By 1970, Mr. Smith had started writing novels, including a work of speculative fiction, 'The Indians Won,' that imagined the existence of a Native American state in the center of America. His other books included a series of thrillers about a Vatican hit man who, after dispatching his victims, dutifully goes to confession. After reading a Newsweek article about Soviet forensic scientists working to re-create the faces of murder victims, Mr. Smith began work on 'Gorky Park.' The book was pitched to his publisher as a team-up story, featuring mismatched Soviet and American detectives who work together on a case. But after his trip to Moscow, Mr. Smith decided to focus on the Russian and effectively dropped the American, to his publisher's dismay. He spent years working to buy back the rights to the book, which he later resold to Random House in a reported $1 million deal. In the interim, he was supported by the proceeds from his 1977 novel 'Nightwing,' a supernatural thriller involving vampire bats and Hopi Native American lore. Mr. Smith married one of his college classmates, Emily Arnold, in 1968. 'She was his first reader,' his children said in a statement, 'and his moral touchstone.' In addition to his wife, he leaves three children, Nell Branco, Luisa Smith, and Sam Smith; a brother; and five grandchildren. Mr. Smith was a two-time winner of the Hammett Prize for crime fiction, awarded for his Victorian-era thriller 'Rose' (1996), which he set in the mining country around Wigan, England, and 'Havana Bay' (1999), in which Renko tracks a killer in Cuba. In 2019, he received the Grand Master Award from the Mystery Writers of America. Advertisement 'By looking at the underworld you see how mainstream society works,' he told the Guardian, discussing his love of crime fiction. 'You can travel through a social fracture and, for a limited amount of time, you can behave differently and ask whatever embarrassing questions you like.'
Indian Express
21 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Indian Express
Gorky Park author Martin Cruz Smith, 82, passes away; 3 books to remember him by
Martin Cruz Smith, author of the acclaimed novel, Gorky Park and its long-running protagonist Arkady Renko, passed away on July 11 at age 82 in San Rafael, California. His death was confirmed by his publisher Simon & Schuster on Tuesday. Over a decades-long career that spanned Cold War paranoia to the present-day Russo-Ukrainian conflict, Smith created thrillers known for their pulse-pounding plots, deep psychological insight and nuanced political context. A post shared by Simon & Schuster (@simonandschuster) His final novel, Hotel Ukraine, published just this week, brings to a close one of modern literature's most enduring detective series. 'My longevity is linked to Arkady's,' Smith told Strand Magazine in 2023. 'As long as he remains intelligent, humorous, and romantic, so shall I.' Born Martin William Smith in Reading, Pennsylvania, he took the name 'Cruz' from his maternal grandmother, crafting a literary persona that would eventually earn him the Hammett Prize, the Gold Dagger, and the prestigious title of 'grand master' from the Mystery Writers of America. His books explored the shifting tides of Russian history, from the Soviet era to the age of oligarchs and war. He was praised for his meticulous research, often drawn from his own travels in Russia. His first major success, Gorky Park, became a worldwide bestseller and a Hollywood film starring William Hurt. With it, Smith didn't just introduce readers to Arkady Renko—he transformed Moscow itself into a living, breathing character. 'Russia is a character in my Renko stories, always,' he told Publishers' Weekly in 2013. Smith is survived by his wife, Emily; his brother, Jack; three children; and five grandchildren. The novel made Smith a household name, Gorky Park and introduced readers to Moscow detective Arkady Renko, who investigates a gruesome triple murder during the Cold War. Renko's pursuit of justice leads him through a web of corruption, politics, and international intrigue. Cruz blends procedural grit with political intrigue, and remains a benchmark in the genre. The crime procedural is also a commentary on the oppressive Soviet society of the time. Winner of the Hammett Prize, this fourth installment in the Renko series finds the former Inspector for the Moscow Militsiya, Arkady Renko, in Cuba, unraveling a mystery steeped in tropical decay and political ghosts. Renkois tasked with identifying a liquefying corpse dragged from the oily waters of Havana Bay. This time Criz turns his attention to a decaying country in the final recess of Communism. The detective who is in an extremely dark place finds a reason to relish his life again. Hotel Ukraine is the 11th and final installment in the Renko series. His final novel and fitting swan song, Hotel Ukraine brings Renko into the heart of the Russo-Ukrainian war. Released just days before his death, it serves as a fitting capstone to Smith's legacy as the legendary Russian detective returns to Moscow. The detective (much like the author himself) has struggled to keep his declining health a secret, but the worsening symptoms have become impossible to hide. Still, Renko is determined to crack the case of a Russian defense official mysteriously murdered in his Moscow hotel room as Russia's war on Ukraine rages. The murder takes place at the Hotel Ukraine, a well-known hotel in the heart of Moscow. It is only when readers each the end of the book that they learn that Smith like Renko, had also been concealing a Parkinson's diagnosis for years.
1News
a day ago
- Entertainment
- 1News
Martin Cruz Smith, acclaimed author of Gorky Park, dies
Martin Cruz Smith, the best-selling mystery novelist who engaged readers for decades with Gorky Park and other thrillers featuring Moscow investigator Arkady Renko, has died at age 82. Smith died Friday at a senior living community in San Rafael, California, 'surrounded by those he loved,' according to his publisher, Simon & Schuster. Smith revealed a decade ago that he had Parkinson's disease, and he gave the same condition to his protagonist. His 11th Renko book, Hotel Ukraine, was published this week and billed as his last. 'My longevity is linked to Arkady's,' he told Strand Magazine in 2023. 'As long as he remains intelligent, humorous, and romantic, so shall I.' Smith was often praised for his storytelling and for his insights into modern Russia; he would speak of being interrogated at length by customs officials during his many trips there. The Associated Press called Hotel Ukraine a 'gem' that 'upholds Smith's reputation as a great craftsman of modern detective fiction with his sharply drawn, complex characters and a compelling plot.' Smith's honours included being named a 'grand master' by the Mystery Writers of America, winning the Hammett Prize for Havana Bay and a Gold Dagger award for Gorky Park. ADVERTISEMENT Born Martin William Smith in Reading, Pennsylvania, he studied creative writing at the University of Pennsylvania and started out as a journalist, including a brief stint at the AP and at the Philadelphia Daily News. Success as an author arrived slowly. He had been a published novelist for more than a decade before he broke through in the early 1980s with Gorky Park. His novel came out when the Soviet Union and the Cold War were still very much alive and centred on Renko's investigation into the murders of three people whose bodies were found in the Moscow park that Smith used for the book's title. Gorky Park, cited by the New York Times as a reminder of 'just how satisfying a smoothly turned thriller can be,' topped the Times' fiction bestseller list and was later made into a movie starring William Hurt. "Russia is a character in my Renko stories, always," Smith told Publishers Weekly in 2013. "Gorky Park may have been one of the first books to take a backdrop and make it into a character. It took me forever to write because of my need to get things right. You've got to knock down the issue of 'Does this guy know what he's talking about or not?'' Smith's other books include science fiction (The Indians Won), the Westerns North to Dakota and Ride to Revenge, and the Romano Grey mystery series. Besides Martin Cruz Smith — Cruz was his maternal grandmother's name — he also wrote under the pen names Nick Carter and Simon Quinn. The morning's headlines in 90 seconds, including Trump's deadline for Russia, legal action against a supermarket giant, and an unusual marathon record. (Source: Breakfast) Smith's Renko books were inspired in part by his own travels and he would trace the region's history over the past 40 years, whether the Soviet Union's collapse (Red Square), the rise of Russian oligarchs (The Siberian Dilemma), or, in the novel Wolves Eats Dogs, the 1986 Chernobyl disaster. By the time he began working on his last novel, Russia had invaded Ukraine. The AP noted in its review of Hotel Ukraine that Smith had devised a backstory 'pulled straight from recent headlines,' referencing such world leaders as Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine,Vladimir Putin of Russia and former President Joe Biden of the US. ADVERTISEMENT Smith is survived by his brother, Jack Smith; his wife, Emily Smith; three children and five grandchildren.
Los Angeles Times
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
‘Gorky Park' writer Martin Cruz Smith, acclaimed for his mysteries, dies at 82
NEW YORK — Martin Cruz Smith, the best-selling mystery novelist who engaged readers for decades with 'Gorky Park' and other thrillers featuring Moscow investigator Arkady Renko, has died at age 82. Smith died Friday at a senior living community in San Rafael, 'surrounded by those he loved,' according to his publisher, Simon & Schuster. Smith revealed a decade ago that he had Parkinson's disease, and he gave the same condition to his protagonist. His 11th Renko book, 'Hotel Ukraine,' was published July 8 and billed as his last. 'My longevity is linked to Arkady's,' he told Strand Magazine in 2023. 'As long as he remains intelligent, humorous, and romantic, so shall I.' Smith was often praised for his storytelling and for his insights into modern Russia; he would speak of being interrogated at length by customs officials during his many trips there. The Associated Press called 'Hotel Ukraine' a 'gem' that 'upholds Smith's reputation as a great craftsman of modern detective fiction with his sharply drawn, complex characters and a compelling plot.' Smith's honors included being named a 'grand master' by the Mystery Writers of America, winning the Hammett Prize for 'Havana Bay' and a Gold Dagger award for 'Gorky Park.' Born Martin William Smith in Reading, Pa. , he studied creative writing at the University of Pennsylvania and started out as a journalist, including a brief stint at the AP and at the Philadelphia Daily News. Success as an author arrived slowly. He had been a published novelist for more than a decade before he broke through in the early 1980s with 'Gorky Park.' His novel came out when the Soviet Union and the Cold War were still very much alive and centered on Renko's investigation into the murders of three people whose bodies were found in the Moscow park that Smith used for the book's title. 'Gorky Park,' cited by the New York Times as a reminder of 'just how satisfying a smoothly turned thriller can be,' topped the Times' fiction bestseller list and was later made into a movie starring William Hurt. 'Russia is a character in my Renko stories, always,' Smith told Publishers Weekly in 2013. ''Gorky Park' may have been one of the first books to take a backdrop and make it into a character. It took me forever to write because of my need to get things right. You've got to knock down the issue of 'Does this guy know what he's talking about or not?'' Smith's other books include science fiction ('The Indians Won'), the Westerns 'North to Dakota' and 'Ride for Revenge,' and the 'Roman Grey' mystery series. Besides 'Martin Cruz Smith' — Cruz was his maternal grandmother's name — he also wrote under the pen names 'Nick Carter' and 'Simon Quinn.' Smith's Renko books were inspired in part by his own travels and he would trace the region's history over the past 40 years, whether it be the Soviet Union's collapse ('Red Square'), the rise of Russian oligarchs ('The Siberian Dilemma') or, in the novel 'Wolves Eats Dogs,' the 1986 Chernobyl disaster. By the time he began working on his last novel, Russia had invaded Ukraine. The AP noted in its review of 'Hotel Ukraine' that Smith had devised a backstory 'pulled straight from recent headlines,' referencing such world leaders as Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, Vladimir Putin of Russia and former President Joe Biden of the U.S. Smith is survived by his brother, Jack Smith; his wife, Emily Smith; three children and five grandchildren. Italie writes for the Associated Press.
San Francisco Chronicle
07-07-2025
- Entertainment
- San Francisco Chronicle
Book Review: ‘Hotel Ukraine' wraps up Martin Cruz Smith's detective Renko book series on a high
Arkady Renko now fumbles with his keys at the door as his Parkinson's disease gradually grows worse. The legendary Russian detective has struggled to keep his declining health a secret, but the worsening symptoms have become impossible to hide. Still, Renko is determined to crack the case of a Russian defense official mysteriously murdered in his Moscow hotel room as Russia's war on Ukraine rages. The murder takes place at the Hotel Ukraine, a well-known hotel in the heart of Moscow, one of the towering Stalin-era buildings known as the Seven Sisters. 'Hotel Ukraine' is the 11th and last installment in the popular Arkady Renko series by Martin Cruz Smith that he launched in 1981 with his blockbuster 'Gorky Park.' Books like 'Red Square,' 'Havana Bay' and 'Stalin's Ghost' followed. We don't find out until we get to the acknowledgments at the book's end to learn that Smith, like Renko, has also been concealing a Parkinson's diagnosis for years until it was clear he had to step aside. The revelation is sure to sadden Smith's loyal fans who have followed the fictional detective's career from Moscow's Cold War days to the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Chernobyl nuclear disaster and the rise of the Russian oligarchs But the aficionados of the Renko novels will still have a gem in Smith's latest, which upholds Smith's reputation as a great craftsman of modern detective fiction with his sharply drawn, complex characters and a compelling plot. It's also a well-informed personal look at how the worsening effects of Parkinson's can affect an individual, as Renko finds he can still drive, and he can still talk on the phone, but he can't do both at the same time. When Renko's superiors discover his health problems, they place him on paid sick leave. But that doesn't stop the intrepid detective from continuing his investigation, alongside his lover, journalist Tatiana Petrovna. Renko discovers a Russian military group was involved in the killing and is being helped on the sly by Marina Makarova, a government official and former lover who he is working with on the official probe. After a somewhat slow start, the action in the novel speeds up as the story advances, and the end approaches with multiple twists and surprises. 'It is surprising to think that I have had Parkinson's for almost 30 years. For most of that time I have been remarkably well,' Smith writes in the acknowledgements. 'But this disease takes no prisoners, and now I have finished my last book. There is only one Arkady and I will miss him.'
