Martin Cruz Smith, ‘Gorky Park’ author, dies in Bay Area home

By Hillel Italie Associated Press 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 Related Articles In new romance Reese Witherspoon doesn t have to be the leader Olivia Culpo and Christian McCaffrey welcome st baby before training camp Rosie O Donnell I m everything King Joffrey Donald Trump fears No charges for John Elway in California golf cart accident that killed friend and former agent Jeff Sperbeck Stanford grad leads Prince Harry s peace efforts with dad but William won t forgive Smith died Friday at a senior living area in San Rafael surrounded by those he loved according to his publisher Simon Schuster Smith revealed a decade ago that he had Parkinson s syndrome and he gave the same condition to his protagonist His th Renko book Hotel Ukraine was published this week and billed as his last My longevity is linked to Arkady s he narrated Strand Magazine in 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 agents during his a great number of 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 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 s 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 scrutiny into the murders of three people whose bodies were uncovered 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 reliably Smith explained Publishers Weekly in 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 Smith s Renko books were inspired in part by his own travels and he would trace the region s history over the past 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 Chernobyl catastrophe 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 up-to-date headlines referencing such world leaders as Volodymyr Zelenskyy 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