Martin Cruz Smith
AKA Simon Quinn, Nick Carter.
Martin Cruz Smith (born Martin William Smith), American novelist, received his BA in Creative Writing from the University of Pennsylvania in 1964. He worked as a journalist from 1965 to 1969 before turning his hand to fiction. His first mystery (Gypsy in Amber – 1971) features NY gypsy art dealer Roman Grey and was nominated for an Edgar Award. Nightwing was his breakthrough novel and was made into a movie.
Smith is best known for his series of novels featuring Russian investigator Arkady Renko. Gorky Park, published in 1981, was the first of these and was called "thriller of the '80s" by Time Magazine. It became a bestseller and won the Gold Dagger Award from the British Crime Writers' Association. Renko has also appeared in Polar Star, Red Square, Havana Bay, Wolves Eat Dogs, Stalin's Ghost, and Three Stations.
In the 1970s, Smith wrote The Inquisitor Series under the pseudonym Simon Quinn and penned two Slocum adult action westerns as Jake Logan. He also wrote the Nick Carter: Killmaster series under the alias Nick Carter with Mike Avallone and others.
Martin Cruz Smith now lives in San Rafael, California with his wife and three children.
“She [Kali] does according to her wisdom in destroying what is useless or what has lived its destined time.”
“Kali is the goddess of destruction, the Clawed Hands, the Blood Drinker... And that's one side of her, as it is for any god. If you knew her for thousands of years you'd know she could be all colors. The sky is black at night, but if your eyes were good enough, they could see the different lights of a million stars. Death is part of her because death is part of life.”
“Well, the Romanies have been around for five thousand years, longer than any nation. And why? Because we know how to survive. The Aryans tried to kill us, the Persians, the Tatars, the Magyars, the Africans, the Germans, everybody. But we stay together, and we move on, and we keep one thing in mind, to survive, and that is our greatest secret.”
“Mystery books. I must read a hundred a year. . . I just wish some of them were harder to figure out.”
“The gaja might despise the Romany, but no Rom ever forgot his dead. For him, roaming over the earth were not only the half million Gypsies who drew breath but also the countless Gypsies who had gone before, restless spirits still wandering through cities and deserts, still real.”
“The most beautiful women in the world were African.”
“To capture the human cost of fallen empire with all its horror and absurdity, Sheets offers the right combination: the political insight of a top reporter and the power of a novelist.”
“Because normal human activity is worse for nature than the greatest nuclear accident in history.”
“It was like a Russian party, Arkady thought. People got drunk, recklessly confessed their love, spilled their festering dislike, had hysterics, marched out, were dragged back in and revived with brandy. It wasn't a French salon.”