Martin Cruz Smith - biography

Martin Cruz Smith came onto the literary landscape with his critically acclaimed Gorky Park, which went on to become an international bestseller. His subsequent novels include Polar Star, Red Square, Havana Bay, and Rose, of which the latter two won the Hammett Award. He lives with his family in California.

Martin Cruz Smith - author's works

December 6 From Martin Cruz Smith, author of Gorky Park and Havana Bay, comes another audacious novel of exotic locales, intimate intrigues and the mysteries of the human heart: December 6. Set in the crazed, nationalistic Tokyo of late 1941, December 6 explores the coming world war through the other end of history's prism -- a prism held here by an unforgettable rogue and lover, Harry Niles. In many ways, Niles should be as American as apple pie: raised by missionary parents, taught to respect his elders and be an honorable and upright Christian citizen dreaming of the good life on the sun-blessed shores of California. But Niles is also Japanese: reared in the aesthetics of Shinto and educated in the dance halls and backroom poker gatherings of Tokyo's shady underworld to steal, trick and run for his life. As a gaijin, a foreigner -- especially one with a gift for the artful scam -- he draws suspicion and disfavor from Japanese police. This potent mixture of stiff tradition and intrigue -- not to mention his brazen love affair with a Japanese mistress who would rather kill Harry than lose him -- fills Harry's final days in Tokyo with suspense and fear. Who is he really working for? Is he a spy? For America? For the emperor? Now, on the eve of Pearl Harbor, Harry himself must decide where his true allegiances lie. Suspenseful, exciting and replete with the detailed research Martin Cruz Smith brings to all his novels, December 6 is a triumph of imagination, history and storytelling melded into a magnificent whole. ... Read more   Havana Bay Part of the the Akardy Renko Series. When the corpse of a Russian is hauled from the oily waters of Havana Bay, Arkady Renko comes to Cuba to identify the body. Looking for the killer, he discovers a city of faded loneliness, unexpected danger, and bewildering contradictions. His investigation introduces him to a beautiful Cuban policewoman; to the rituals of Santeria; to an American fugitive and a group of ruthless mercenaries. In this place where all things Russian are despised, where Hemingway fished and the KGB flourished, where the hint of music is always in the air, Arkady finds a trail of deceit that reaches halfway around the world–and a reason to relish his own life again. ... Read more   Rose The year is 1872. The place is Wigan, England, a coal town where rich mine owners live lavishly alongside miners no better than slaves. Into this dark complicated world comes Jonathan Blair, who has accepted a commission to find a missing man. As he begins his search every road leads back to one woman, a haughty, vixenish pit girl named Rose. With her fiery hair and skirts pinned up over trousers, she cares nothing for a society that calls her unnatural, scandalous, erotic. As Rose and Blair circle one another, first warily, then with the heat of mutual desire, Blair loses his balance. And the lull induced by Rose's sensual touch leaves him unprepared for the bizarre, soul scorching truth. . . . Read more   Red Square Part of the Akardy Renko Series. Back from exile, Arkady Reko returns to find that his country, his Moscow, even his job, are nearly dead. Not so his enemies. Hounded by the Russian mafia, chased by ruthless minions of the newly rich and powerful, and tempted by his great love, Arkady can only hope for escape. Fate, however, has other ideas.... Read more   Polar Star Part of the Akardy Renko Series. Arkady Renko has made too many enemies and now he toils in obscurity on a Russian factory ship in the middle of the Bering Sea. But when a female crew member is picked up dead with the day's catch, Arkady becomes obsessed with the case and once again discovers more than he wants to know and certainly more than he bargained for.... Read more   Stallion Gate Part of the Akardy Renko Series. Back from exile, Arkady Reko returns to find that his country, his Moscow, even his job, are nearly dead. Not so his enemies. Hounded by the Russian mafia, chased by ruthless minions of the newly rich and powerful, and tempted by his great love, Arkady can only hope for escape. Fate, however, has other ideas.... Read more   Gorky Park The book that started it all - the fantastic Akardy Renko Series. A triple murder in a Moscow amusement center: three corpses found frozen in the snow, faces and fingers missing. Chief homicide investigator Arkady Renko is brilliant, sensitive, honest, and cynical about everything except his profession. To identify the victims and uncover the truth, he must battle the KGB, FBI, and New York police as he performs the impossible--and tries to stay alive doing it .... Read more Search fo more books by Martin Cruz Smith

interviews, reviews and resources

“Gorky Park” author defects, By Craig Offman at Salon.com The flap copy for Martin Cruz Smith's “Havana Bay” proclaims his latest novel to be “the most spellbinding tale” since “Gorky Park” But if Random House thinks Smith is on such a roll, why did they let him defect to Simon & Schuster ... Read more Michael J. Bandler reviews the Martin Cruz Smith book “December 6” for the Houston Chronicle A tantalizing sense of place invariably envelops the most satisfying pieces of mystery and thriller literature, whether the adventure is domestically rooted or globally sweeping. Think, for example, of Raymond Chandler and Graham Greene, Alan Furst and John le Carre ... Read more Listen to the Martin Cruz Smith interview with Don Swaim, 1986 at wiredforbooks.com using your Real player. The Salon.com interview by Sophie Majeski - “working in a coal mine” - The bestselling author of “Gorky Park ”finds literary gold in a notorious English mining town. Best known for his Russian detective novels, “Gorky Park,” “Polar Star” and “Red Square”, Martin Cruz Smith has temporarily abandoned his Slavic hero, Arkady Renko, for a 19th-century African explorer from America who is investigating a cleric's odd disappearance in a benighted coal mining town in the north of England. "Rose," published this month by Random House, is named for its heroine, one of the pit girls of Wigan, who not only worked at the mine in the town made notorious by George Orwell in "The Road to Wigan Pier," but insisted on wearing pants to do it ... Read the interview Selected reviews for the Martin Cruz Smith book “December 6” at literati.net “Bustle of pre-war Tokyo comes alive in December 6” - Book Review, By Adam Woog, Special to The Seattle Times Tokyo, just before the outbreak of World War II, must have been even more astonishing and mysterious than it is today. Each neighborhood was a self-contained world of wonders — a warren of tiny shops and bustling activity, with a thin veneer of Western-style sophistication laid atop the deep traditions of an ancient society ... Read more The novel “December 6” reviewed by Daniel Grotta for the Philadelphia Inquirer Take a likable but hard-edged American wheeler-dealer, set him in pre-World War II Tokyo, give him total fluency and intimate familiarity with Japanese language and culture, and turn the clock back to just days before the attack on Pearl Harbor. Add a psychopathic samurai army officer hell-bent on vengeance, a poker-playing admiral pressing for vital military intelligence, and a jealous and possibly homicidal Japanese mistress, throw in a yakuza gangster, the notorious Thought Police (Japan's gestapo), and hold out a proffered seat on the very last Clipper flight out of Japan before the war begins, and you should have all the ingredients of an exotic, offbeat, fast-paced, thriller ... Read more Martin Cruz Smith interview by Daniel Robert Epstein, bookworm at ugo.com Martin Cruz Smith is author of Gorky Park and Havana Bay. He has written another novel of exotic locales, intimate intrigues and the mysteries of the human heart: December 6. Set in the crazed, nationalistic Tokyo of late 1941, December 6 explores the coming world war through the other end of history's prism -- a prism held here by an unforgettable rogue and lover, Harry Niles. ... Read the interview Divided loyalties on the eve of war. A review of “December 6” by Michael Harris at latimes.com Martin Cruz Smith's readers have come to expect vivid prose, engaging characters and meticulous research into the settings of his thrillers -- Russia in “Gorky Park,” Cuba in “Havana Bay.” They won't be disappointed by “December 6,” set in Tokyo on the eve of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 ... Read more

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