Ride down Woodward Avenue into the Motor City, toward a deadly show-down between dedicated homicide detective Raymond Cruz and a psychopathic murderer, Oklahoma Wildman Clement Mansell, who picked the wrong town to kill someone, even if it was only a crooked judge.
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Ride down Woodward Avenue into the Motor City, toward a deadly show-down between dedicated homicide detective Raymond Cruz and a psychopathic murderer, Oklahoma Wildman Clement Mansell, who picked the wrong town to kill someone, even if it was only a crooked judge.
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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.
Leonard's 17th novel, "City Primeval: High Noon in Detroit" (1980) captures the streets of Detroit, the city's corruption and violence, and its law enforcement officers. The subtitle "High Noon" of course refers to the famous 1952 western that starred Gary Cooper as the aging Marshall Will Kane of the small town of Hadleyville, Territory of New Mexico who has cleared the town of its outlaws. Marshall Kane is forced to confront a gang of thugs that have returned for vengeance after their release from prison. Kane is about to be married and retire and he seeks help from the townspeople. With everyone cowed and afraid, Marshall Kane must confront the outlaws alone in a large gunfight in the climactic scene of the movie. With the killing of the outlaws, the town is able to move on and to prosper as a cohesive community.
As is "High Noon", "City Primeval" is a story of law and community. Leonard wrote the novel after spending time following the Detroit Police Department and writing a favorable newspaper article about its efforts in fighting crime. With its communal, self-effacing efforts in protecting a large, troubled city, the Detroit Police Department is the hero of Leonard's novel. The book has some characteristics of a police procedural but is deepened by the conflict between a police office and the criminal.
In Leonard's book, the major police officer, Lieutenant Raymond Cruz, takes the fight against evil personally and outside the law in his pursuit of the crazed but fascinating killer Clement Mansell, the "Oklahoma Wildman". Leonard's novel is a confrontation between Cruz and Mansell, as "High Noon" was a confrontation between Marshall Kane and the outlaws who have returned to plague the town of Hadleyville. Cruz kills the Oklahoma Wildman but in the process goes outside the law and throws away the careful police work done by his staff and others in the police department. The Wildman was deprived of his life and of the opportunity for a fair trial. The course of the law, not the actions of a committed but vigilante police officer, is the manner, the novel suggests, in which law and peace may be established and Detroit, the "City Primeval", may overcome its difficult days and become a thriving, united community whose citizens may pursue their own paths for life and happiness.
In addition to the conflict between the vigilante 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. These relationships, and the backstories of the characters, receive development in Leonard's telling.
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.
The western influence is strong in "City Primeval". The book differs from the later works of Leonard in its sharply gritty, menacing focus and its portrayal of a tense struggle between the police department, the lawman acting outside his duty, 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 found "City Primeval" more gripping.
I have been enjoying getting to know Leonard's writings and think "City Primeval" and its portrait of Detroit, the police department, and of good guys and bad guys is among his better works. There is a good deal to be learned in our current troubled times from this book in its discussion of the nature of law and community. The book is included in a Library of America compilation of four Elmore Leonard novels from the 1980s.
