Mitchell Smith (born 1935) is an American

author In legal discourse, an author is the creator of an original work that has been published, whether that work exists in written, graphic, visual, or recorded form. The act of creating such a work is referred to as authorship. Therefore, a sculpt ...

writing

crime fiction Crime fiction, detective story, murder mystery, crime novel, mystery novel, and police novel are terms used to describe narratives or fiction that centre on criminal acts and especially on the investigation, either by an amateur or a professiona ...

and

science fiction Science fiction (often shortened to sci-fi or abbreviated SF) is a genre of speculative fiction that deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts. These concepts may include information technology and robotics, biological manipulations, space ...

Biography

Mitchell Smith was born in upper

New York State New York, also called New York State, is a state in the northeastern United States. Bordered by New England to the east, Canada to the north, and Pennsylvania and New Jersey to the south, its territory extends into both the Atlantic Ocean and ...

, and went to military school on

Mississippi Mississippi ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Deep South regions of the United States. It borders Tennessee to the north, Alabama to the east, the Gulf of Mexico to the south, Louisiana to the s ...

's Gulf Coast. He attended

Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...

, where he studied English and history. He enlisted in the army working in

military intelligence Military intelligence is a military discipline that uses information collection and analysis List of intelligence gathering disciplines, approaches to provide guidance and direction to assist Commanding officer, commanders in decision making pr ...

stationed in

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

during the

Cold War The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 unt ...

. After leaving the army, he started his career in writing. He currently lives in

Whatcom County Whatcom County (, ) is a county located in the northwestern corner of the U.S. state of Washington, bordered by the Lower Mainland (the Metro Vancouver and Fraser Valley Regional Districts) of the Canadian province of British Columbia to t ...

Washington Washington most commonly refers to: * George Washington (1732–1799), the first president of the United States * Washington (state), a state in the Pacific Northwest of the United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A ...

Writing

Smith started his writing career with

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s, including several "erotic Westerns" (in the Buckskin imprint) published under the pen-name of Roy LeBeau, and then switching to crime novels. His novels include ''Daydreams'' (1987), which centers on a female detective investigating the murder of a call girl; ''Stone City'' (1990), a mystery set entirely in a maximum security prison, where an imprisoned professor is appointed by the inmates to solve a series of murders (remarkably similar to the HBO series '' Oz'' (1997) in its initial premise); ''Due North'' (1992), concerning a woman who returns to Seattle from the Alaskan wilderness to care for her dying mother; ''Karma'' (1994), a thriller featuring Hindu mobsters; ''Sacrifice'' (1997), a thriller in the vein of Floridian crime writers (

Charles Willeford Charles Ray Willeford III (January 2, 1919 – March 27, 1988) was an American writer. An author of fiction, poetry, autobiography and literary criticism, Willeford wrote a series of novels featuring hardboiled detective fiction, detective Hoke ...

, John D. MacDonald and

Carl Hiaasen Carl Hiaasen (; born March 12, 1953) is an American journalist and novelist. He began his career as a newspaper reporter and by the late 1970s had begun writing novels in his spare time, both for adults and for middle grade readers. Two of his ...

); and ''Reprisal'' (1999), a tale of familial revenge and psychological horror which is celebrated in an essay by Michael Shea in ''Horror: Another 100 Best Books''. Smith switched to science fiction with his latest books which form '' The Snowfall Trilogy'' consisting of ''Snowfall'', ''Kingdom River'', and ''Moonrise''. Smith's story "Popcorn" was adapted as a film of the same name.

References

1935 births Living people 20th-century American novelists 21st-century American novelists American crime fiction writers American male novelists American science fiction writers Novelists from New York (state) 20th-century American male writers 21st-century American male writers {{US-fiction-writer-stub