Smith, Martin Cruz

Martin Cruz Smith, born Martin William Smith, is an American author of thrillers born in Reading, Pennsylvania. His father was a jazz musician and his mother a jazz singer. She was of Pueblo descent and was active in the Native American civil rights movement. The family moved homes several times during Smith’s youth, but he predominantly grew up in Philadelphia where he attended Germantown Academy before reading sociology at the University of Pennsylvania. After failing his sociology exam, he changed course, and in 1964 he was awarded a BA in creative writing.