Monday, June 05, 2023

City Primeval by Elmore Leonard

 

(pb; 1980)

From the back cover

“Clement Mansell knows how easy it is to get away with murder. The crazed killer is back on the Detroit streets—thanks to some nifty courtroom moves by his crafty looker of a lawyer—and he’s feeling invincible enough to execute a crooked Motown judge. Homicide Detective Raymond Cruz thinks the Oklahoma Wildman crossed the line long before this latest outrage, and he’s determined to see that the psycho does not slip through the legal system’s loopholes a second time. But that means a good cop is going to have to play somewhat fast and loose with the rules—in order to maneuver Mansell into a wild Midwest showdown that he won’t be walking away from.”

 

Review

City’s modern-day cowboy Cruz and his law-enforcement associates face off against a sociopathic, brazen, and murderous criminal (Clement Mansell) whose low-life wiliness allows him to slip out of situations that would normally land another criminal in prison for decades. Leonard’s writing, at his best, is simultaneously slick, action- taut clever, with loquacious dialogue (but tightly edited), with a raw unpredictability thrown into the mix, and City reflects all these qualities. You know there’s going to be a showdown between Cruz and Mansell, just a question of where and when, and when it comes, it’s a doozy of a finale for a book that’s worth owning.

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City Primeval became the basis for FX channel’s upcoming limited series Justified: City Primeval, a continuation/spin-off of their 2010-15 show Justified, featuring Leonard’s book- and story-recurrent lawman character, Raylan Givens (starting with Leonard’s 1993 novel Pronto) in place of Raymond Cruz. As with the 2010-15 series, Timothy Olyphant played Givens. Justified: City Primeval is scheduled to begin airing on FX on July 18, 2023.

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