Tom Rob Smith

Tom Rob Smith at the Frankfurt Book Fair 2013

Tom Rob Smith (* 1979 in London ) is a British writer , screenwriter and television producer . He wrote the trilogy about the Soviet state security agent Leo Demidow ( child 44 , Kolyma , agent 6 ), which appeared between 2008 and 2011 and the first volume of which was made into a film in 2015 . As the showrunner in charge , he has developed the television series London Spy , The Assassination of Gianni Versace (second season of the anthology series American Crime Story ) and MotherFatherSon since 2015 .

Life

Smith was born to a Swedish mother and an English father. After graduating from Cambridge University , he spent a year studying creative writing in Italy. He then worked as a screenwriter.

In early 2008, Smith's debut novel Kind 44 was published , a thriller set in the Stalinist Soviet Union of the early 1950s about a series of murders of children that MGB agent Leo Demidow wants to solve. In doing so, he gets into an ever stronger conflict with the ruling system, which he supports with full conviction at the beginning. The book has so far been translated into 36 languages, has received several prestigious awards and has been nominated many times ( New Blood Dagger , Dilys Award , Barry Award - Best First Novel , Anthony Award - Best First Novel ). It was made into a film in 2015 .

In January 2009 the thriller Kolyma followed , in which Leo Demidow is overtaken by his past as an MGB agent. The action initially takes place in Moscow, but the protagonist is forced to sneak into one of the worst gulags in order to save the life of his adopted daughter Soja. Later on, Leo and his family are drawn into the Hungarian uprising . It is noteworthy that the German translation of the book was available in stores before the original version.

His third novel Agent 6 brings the story of the agent Leo Demidow and his family to an end.

In 2013, without any doubt, a thriller was released that is set in London and Sweden and whose protagonists are the 29-year-old gay Daniel and his Swedish mother. Hans Jörg Wangner wrote about the novel: “In his thriller, Tom Rob Smith plays skillfully with fragile idylls, broken trust and broken biographies. Very early on there is not much left of the common image of Sweden with its wide landscapes, its friendly people and its Protestant ethics. "

Smith developed the television series London Spy, broadcast on BBC Two in November and December 2015, about a young Briton who investigates the alleged accidental death of his partner and thereby uncovered entanglements in the secret service milieu. For the anthology series American Crime Story he developed the second season of The Assassination of Gianni Versace about the murder of Gianni Versace , in which he tells the life story of the serial killer Andrew Cunanan from the murder of backwards . It was broadcast in early 2018 and won an Emmy for best miniseries that year . Again for BBC Two he developed the series MotherFatherSon, which has been broadcast since 2019 .

Smith lived in London with his partner Ben Stephenson, the former head of the drama department at the BBC and current television director at Bad Robot Productions , and now lives in Santa Monica , California .

Awards

• 2008 Ian Fleming Steel Dagger of the British Crime Writers' Association (CWA) for Child 44 (German child 44. DuMont, Cologne 2008)
• 2009 International Thriller Award , Best First Novel category from the American International Thriller Writers Inc. (ITW) for Child 44
• 2009 Best crime novel of 2008 (8th place) in the KrimiWelt best list for child 44 (original: Child 44)

bibliography

Leo Demidow Trilogy

• Vol. 1: Child 44 . Simon & Schuster, London 2008, ISBN 978-1-84737-127-0 .
  • Child 44 . DuMont , Cologne 2008, ISBN 978-3-8321-8056-0 (translated by Armin Gontermann).
• Vol. 2: The Secret Speech . Simon & Schuster, London 2009, ISBN 978-1-8473-7808-8 .
  • Kolyma . DuMont, Cologne 2009, ISBN 978-3-8321-8089-8 (translated by Armin Gontermann).
• Vol. 3: Agent 6 . Simon & Schuster, London 2011, ISBN 978-1-84737-568-1 .
  • Agent 6 . Wilhelm Goldmann Verlag , Munich 2011, ISBN 978-3-442-54677-0 (translated by Eva Kemper).

Other novels

• The Farm . Grand Central Publ., London 2014, ISBN 978-0-4465-5073-4 .
  • Without any doubt. Manhattan , Munich 2013, ISBN 978-3-442-54678-7 (translated by Eva Kemper).

Audio books

• Child 44 . Hachette Audio, London 2008, ISBN 978-1-6002-4159-8 (11 CDs, read by Dennis Boutsikaris).
  • Child 44 . Lübbe Audio, Bergisch Gladbach 2008, ISBN 978-3-7857-3661-6 (6 CDs, 422 min., Edited version read by Bernd Michael Lade ).
• The secret speech . Hachette Audio, London 2009, ISBN 978-1-6002-4576-3 (10 CDs, read by Dennis Boutsikaris).
  • Kolyma . Lübbe Audio, Bergisch Gladbach 2010, ISBN 978-3-7857-3895-5 (6 CDs, 408 min., Edited version, read by Bernd Michael Lade).
• Agent 6 . Hachette Audio, London 2012, ISBN 978-1-6111-3990-7 (11 CDs, read by Dennis Boutsikaris).
  • Agent 6 . Lübbe Audio, Bergisch Gladbach 2011, ISBN 978-3-86717-784-9 (8 CDs, 600 min., Edited version, read by Dietmar Bär ).

Filmography

• Doctors (2003-04), BBC One
• Dream Team (2005), Sky One
• London Spy (2015), BBC Two
• The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story (2018), FX
• MotherFatherSon (2019), BBC Two

Web links

• Official website (English)
• Literature by and about Tom Rob Smith in the catalog of the German National Library
• Tom Rob Smith in the Internet Movie Database (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Interview on krimi-couch.de (accessed on October 26, 2013)
2. ↑ Review on stuttgarter-zeitung.de (accessed on October 26, 2013)
3. ↑ Gabriel Tate: Tom Rob Smith on London Spy: 'I was surprised that sex scene shocked anyone' . In: The Guardian of December 27, 2015.
4. ↑ Sean T. Collins: 'The Assassination of Gianni Versace': Tom Rob Smith on Making Meaning From Pain . In: The New York Times of March 22, 2018.
5. ↑ Paul Wilson: How Tom Rob Smith Created 'MotherFatherSon', A Thriller Of Many Stripes . In: Esquire of March 12, 2019.
6. ^ Neil Midgley: Interview: Ben Stephenson on the future of BBC drama . In: The Telegraph, April 8, 2009.
7. ↑ Craig McLean: American Crime Story writer Tom Rob Smith on The Assassination of Gianni Versace: People only know a fragment of the story . In: Evening Standard of February 23, 2018.