21-07-2025
Martin Cruz Smith obituary: author of acclaimed thriller Gorky Park
Martin Cruz Smith was producing 20 pages of pulp fiction a day in 1971 when he sold a publisher an idea for a quick 'buddy' thriller that would feature an American cop swooping in to help a Russian detective solve a murder case in Moscow.
His research consisted of a two-week package holiday to the Soviet Union, organised by Intourist but with no guide. It was largely a matter of walking the streets and exploring the bars and markets, he recalled, looking at the expressions on faces and listening to a language he didn't know. But he felt that he understood the place as a writer in a way that he had never understood anything before.
When he got back home and began writing, the figure of Arkady Renko, a depressive Moscow policeman wholly disillusioned but driven by a private sense of duty, began to dominate his imagination: he resolved to change the book's focus and ditch the American protagonist. 'I knew I was on to something pretty good,' he remembered. 'But when I showed my publishers, they asked where was the American hero?'
