As a novelist, I tell stories and people give me money. Then financial planners tell me stories and I give them money.

Smith has also written a number of other paperback originals including a series about a character named "The Inquisitor" a James Bond-type agent employed by the Vatican. And on September 5 2010 he and Arkady Renko returned to the top of the New York Times bestseller list when Three Stations debuted at number seven on the fiction bestsellers list. Renko has since appeared in six other novels by Smith.

Martin Cruz Smith (born November 3 1942) is an American mystery novelist.