Seriously crazed killer Clement Mansell, aka the "Oklahoma Wildman, " is back on the Detroit streets--thanks to nifty courtroom moves by his lawyer--and he's feeling invincible enough to execute a crooked Motown judge on a whim. Homicide detective Raymond Cruz is determined to see that the hayseed psycho doesn't slip through a legal loophole the second time.
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Seriously crazed killer Clement Mansell, aka the "Oklahoma Wildman, " is back on the Detroit streets--thanks to nifty courtroom moves by his lawyer--and he's feeling invincible enough to execute a crooked Motown judge on a whim. Homicide detective Raymond Cruz is determined to see that the hayseed psycho doesn't slip through a legal loophole the second time.
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The American novelist Elmore Leonard (1925 -- 2013) began his career as a writer of genre westerns but achieved greater renown as a writer of crime fiction. Leonard's crime novels have many different settings but none more so than Detroit, his beloved home. Leonard's is a poet of Detroit streets in much that same way that the noir writer David Goodis has become known as the poet of the underside of Philadelphia.
Published in 1980 as Leonard's 17th novel, "City Primeval" captures the streets of Detroit, its corruption and violence, and its law enforcement officers. At one time, the novel was subtitled "High Noon in Detroit" and it bears the marks of the genre western moved to a late 20th century city. The crime and western genres have parallels as they present the struggle between good and evil. "City Primeval" is a war between good in the person of Lieutenant Raymond Cruz and evil in the person of the crazed but fascinating killer Clement Mansell, the "Oklahoma Wildman".
The plot has a basic simplicity. There has been a brutal murder of a crooked ex-Detroit judge returning from a night at the racetrack with a young lady companion. Mansell is shown from the outset as the culprit. He has a long history of crime but has never been put away. Cruz is assigned to the case and is immediately on Mansell's trail. Proving the crime, however, will be difficult. The case soon becomes personal and develops into an individual test of wills between Cruz and Mansell.
Besides the conflict between the good lawman and the bad outlaw, the book focuses the the characters' relationship to women. Mansell is involved with the sexy 23-year old Sandy Stanton, a lost individual and a marijuana user who is also the girlfriend of an Albanian immigrant that Mansell wants to hit for his money. Cruz is divorced. As the novel proceeds he becomes involved with Carolyn Wilder, the seemingly cold and brilliant criminal defense attorney who has been representing Mansell. (A somewhat similar odd romantic pairing recurs in Leonard's later novel "Out of Sight") These relationships, and the backstories of the characters, receive development in Leonard's telling.
The novel is tightly organized and draws in the reader. It opens with a portrait of the corrupt judge whose murder drives the story. This is followed by a quickly paced chapter describing the murder. Then the reader meets Cruz as he is being interviewed by a woman reporter who is critical of what she sees as his macho, male-oriented law enforcement lifestyle. The story develops with a host of subsidiary characters on both sides of the law, with a focus on the growing personal confrontation between Cruz and Mansell.
The streets, places, and music of late 1970s Detroit are at the center of the story as Leonard describes the toughness and violence of his city. The book illustrates Leonard's inimitable writing style, with its sharp observations, preciseness, and, especially, has ear for speech patterns and dialogue. The characters come to life through their words.
I had earlier read a collection of Leonard's western novels in the Library of America together with several of has later novels from the 1990s and beyond. This book was my first experience from Leonard in roughly mid-career in the 1980s. The western influence is strong in "City Primeval". The book differs from the later works of Leonard I have read in its sharply gritty, menacing focus and its portrayal of a tense struggle between the law and an outlaw. Many of Leonard's later books involve crime and low life, but they also have a lightness and sense of humor about them that (with the exception of some sharply funny dialogue passages) is largely absent from "City Primeval". This book takes the fight between good and evil more seriously and tensely. I enjoyed the lightness of Leonard's later writings but I also found "City Primeval" gripping.
I have been enjoying getting to know Leonard's writings and think "City Primeval" and its portrait of Detroit and of good guys and bad guys is among his better works. The book is included in a Library of America compilation of four Elmore Leonard novels from the 1980s.
