Martin Cruz Smith is an American mystery novelist. Born Martin William Smith in Reading, Pennsylvania, he was educated at the University of Pennsylvania, located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and received a Bachelor of Arts degree in creative writing in 1964. He is of partly Pueblo, Spanish, Senecu del Sur and Yaqui ancestry. From 1965 to 1969 he worked as a journalist and began writing fiction in the early 1970s. His first mystery, Canto for a Gypsy — featuring Roman Grey, a gypsy art dealer in New York City, New York — was nominated for an Edgar Award. Nightwing , also an... Edgar nominee, was his breakthrough novel, and he adapted it for a feature film of the same name . Smith is best known for his novels featuring Russian investigator Arkady Renko whom Smith introduced in Gorky Park . The novel, which was called the "thriller of the '80s" by Time, became a bestseller and won a Gold Dagger Award from the British Crime Writers' Association. Renko has since appeared in six other novels by Smith.
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