Martin J. Smith Books In Order

Publication Order of Memory Books

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books

Martin J. Smith is an award-winning novelist and journalist.

The veteran magazine editor and journalist has been the winner of more than 40 magazine and newspaper writing awards. He is also a four-time nominated Pulitzer Prize finalist, even though he has never won it.
Smith was born in Birmingham, Alabama but spent much of his childhood in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It was while he was studying at Pennsylvania State University that he began developing an interest in writing as a career.
Martin would then graduate and proceed to work as a newspaper reporter for more than 15 years.

His work during this time took him across the globe from the riot-ravaged streets of Los Angeles to Manila in the grip of a revolution, from a Mustang Ranch in Nevada to Southern Pennsylvania with its deep poverty.
He would ultimately end up as “Orange Coast” magazine’s editor at large. This was a regional monthly in Orange County California that he had been editing for at least four years.

Martin J. Smith published “Time Release” his Antony Award-nominated work in 1997. In addition to his fiction works, he has also published several nonfiction works, two with coauthor Patrick J. Kiger.

Before he became a bestselling author, Martin J. Smith made his name as a journalist and editor. In 1975, he was a political science major in his sophomore year at Pennsylvania State when he stumbled into something that would change his life.
He had gone into the office of the student-run daily paper “The Daily Collegian,” where he found that one of the columns he had written had been published.

While he cannot remember what the column was about, the smells, sounds, and sights, in adition to seeing his column in the paper made him believe he could write.
The following day he changed his major to journalism and after graduation, he got a job working for “The Express,” a small Philadelphia-based paper.

A year later, he moved to “The Pittsburgh Press” where he covered everything from the state legislature to night cops, politics to the courts.
It was when he was moved to writing for the Sunday magazine that he learned that he loved longer, more narrative writing.

Later, he would move up the ranks becoming an editor for several papers before he ended up at the monthly lifestyle magazine “The Orange County Register.”
Martin feels privileged to have worked as a journalist as it exposed him to all manner of places, people, and ways of life, and helped him overcome his natural instinct of being introverted.

It was in the early 90s when after working in more than 15 newspapers and magazines, Martin J. Smith developed an interest in writing fiction.

He began realizing and acknowledging that there were many stories to be told that were not suited to the magazine or newspaper format.

During this time, he was intrigued by what was then called the repressed memories phenomenon which was too complex to be explained in a newspaper or magazine column.
It was from this fascination that he conceived the manuscript for “Time Release,” his debut work that he published in 1997.

He took inspiration from the infamous Chicago Tylenol product tampering killing and the rash of repressed memory cases across the US to pen his novel.
There were hundreds of cases of repressed memories in the decade between 1985 and 1995 most of which he found very interesting.

“Time Release” is a novel set in 1986 in Pittsburgh. The city is in the grip of a major panic as there has been a deranged maniac poisoning pharmacy shelves.

According to the evidence, the most likely culprit is Ron Corbett, but he has been let off the hook due to shoddy police work, which means the crime is yet to be solved.
A decade later, the same thing recurs, and this time Detective Downing is determined to bring Corbett to justice, even if it is for personal reasons.

He works with a psychologist named Jim Christensen who is an expert in memory as they interview the suspects’s son. Their witness is a young man who has his own problems in addition to dealing with a painful past.
The big question is does he remember his father replacing pills or maybe he has repressed memories of the despicable crime that was committed by his own father?
As the psychologist digs into the boy’s memories, the more the detective becomes obsessed with the case.

At some point, Christiansen and Downing fear the killings may not be random. Moreover, by getting into the boy’s memories they may expose themselves to a very dangerous predator.

In Martin J. Smith’s “Shadow Image,” Jim Christensen, the psychologist is dealing with a timely but touchy subject. He is looking into the ravages of Alzheimer’s and how very few people understand the condition.
According to the information available, Floss Underhill had made a suicide attempt when she jumped off a bridge at the Pittsburgh-based family estate.

Chris and Brenna Kennedy his live-in lover have been working on the case. Brenna is the attorney that the Underhill political family has hired to ensure the story does not get out.
Chris met Floss while he was based at the Alzheimer’s research center where she was a patient for several years.

Ultimately, Jim and Brenna come to a similar conclusion even though they came at it from different angles. They both believe that there had been an attempted murder on Floss.
But this theory puts their lives and those of their children in danger, as new and old secrets are unearthed from the most unexpected sources.

Martin J. Smith’s novel “Straw Men,” tells the story of an insane man nicknamed “the Scarecrow.”

For nearly a decade, he has been in prison after he was sentenced for committing a vicious attack that had nearly taken the life of a newbie policeman. The police officer had been left with amnesia but some new evidence has been obtained through DNA.
Harnett the police officer may have to deal with the possibility that her flawed memory had resulted in an innocent man spending eight years in prison for a crime he did not commit.

But then she begins receiving some strange phone calls and is terrified to hear the crackly voice of the Scarecrow on the other end of the line.

Only Jim Christensen the psychologist and once-upon-a-time nemesis can get the truth from her shattered mind before the killer comes back to finish what he started.