Let’s talk about mentors for a moment
Especially when you are taking on a new challenge, a mentor can show the way, guide you around obstacles, or simply be a sounding board. Being a mentor is a way of both giving back and helping others rise to their fullest potential.
My mentor didn’t even know he was my mentor.
“I want to take readers inside Mexico,” I told the agent. “The same way that the Arkady Renko series by Martin Cruz Smith takes readers inside Soviet Russia.”
When the agent didn’t recognize the reference, I knew that she wasn’t the right person to represent Detective Emilia Cruz.
That interaction was more than a dozen years ago, before CLIFF DIVER, first in the Detective Emilia Cruz series was published. Querying literary agents was a deflating exercise; none were interested in a mystery series with a female Mexican police detective. Make her an American who helicopters in to solve crime, they suggested (I paraphrase).
But my mentor didn’t turn his main character into an American to fit someone else’s vision.
Martin Cruz Smith was my mentor, although we’d never met, spoken, or exchanged emails. Via the Arkady Renko series set in Moscow, he charted a course I wanted to follow .
By Mark Coggins from San Francisco – Martin Cruz Smith via Wikipedia Commons
About the Arkady Renko series
Renko is a Moscow detective solving crimes against a Cold War backdrop of a dysfunctional Communist system, corrupt Party apparatchiks, and a black market economy. He was born in that environment, the product of a decaying Soviet system and a father who butchered his own Soviet troops during World War II.
There are 11 books in the Arkady Renko series, which includes the posthumously released HOTEL UKRAINE.
In my view, Books 1-5 (GORKY PARK, POLAR STAR, RED SQUARE, and HAVANA BAY, WOLVES EAT DOGS) are among the best international police procedural novels ever written. Arkady’s personal life is rife with betrayal. His inner voice is appealing and relatable. Secondary plots abound and there’s a perfect balance between dangerous action and dialogue-driven investigation. The Cold War is alive and well, strewn with deception and darkness.
Proven formula with a new face
That series proved that a character who is rooted in the setting has a powerful advantage when it comes to storytelling. Seeing events through those eyes gives an author a deep well of authenticity to offer the reader.
Using the same formula, Emilia Cruz is a native of Acapulco, a world-famous city falling prey to the drug trade. Through her eyes we understand the real Mexico, the highs and lows, the beautiful and the appalling. Deception and betrayal are all too common as everyone struggles to survive the unrelenting drug war.
Martin Cruz Smith recently passed away after a long battle with Parkinson’s Disease. An obituary noted that the first Arkady Renko book, GORKY PARK, was devised as a buddy thriller, with a Russian and an American teaming up to investigate. (FYI: Anyone remember the 1988 movie Red Heat with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jim Belushi?)
When Smith decided to focus on the Russian investigator, his publisher baulked and didn’t release the book. It was 10 years before Smith could buy back the rights and deliver the Arkady Renko series as we know it now.
RIP, Martin Cruz Smith. Thank you for showing the way.
