Comparing The Maltese Falcon And City Primeval: High Noon

The settings portrayed in City Primeval: High Noon in Detroit, a novel by Elmore Leonard, and The Maltese Falcon, a detective novel by Dashiell Hammet were closely related while occurring in to cities on complete opposite sides of the country. Both Raymond Cruz and Sam Spade are sharp, old fashioned, and gritty characters. When it comes to the descriptions of these characters, the correlation between them and the city that they are in is iconic. The way they act throughout the novels relates to the city’s historically old fashioned mannerisms. Though they both share many attributes of the past times with the size and standards, we see more of the ruthlessness in Detroit from the apparent racism and the compact housing of the big city. Through

Even though the time periods did not match up, San Francisco and Detroit almost mirrored each other. Neither were what they are today yet, with big buildings and enormous populations; however, one thing that they did share was the fact that they had a problem with everyday crime and how some crimes were taken care of. Both Dashiell Hammet and Elmore Leonard were “tell it how it is” novelists. They shared the same message when speaking through their characters with hidden messages about the times. Corruption was exposed when talking about their fictional detectives being hard-boiled and not always playing by the rules. They subtly speak of this corruption and allow the reader to find this to be true in the greedy and evil depths that aren’t always talked about of the big cities. In City Primeval, Leonard allows us to realize that Clement Mansell is a symbol of the unfortunate outcomes that occur in real life. Early on, when Mansell is getting away from murder and is allowed to get right back on the streets, we notice that Leonard is trying to tell us that some times the good guy does not always win; consequently, Cruz takes it under his own authority to get this cool killer. Showing that sometimes when things end up defying the law it can cause the good guy’s character to falter. Ultimately, the message that these authors provide to us is that life is not always fair. Sam Spade and Raymond Cruz paved the way for us to think about the way things come out in the end. Yes, they sometimes are unjust, tough, and illegal, but the outcome ended in a victory. People looking in at these scenarios do not know the full story for the most part and most likely never will. Specifically, these texts are show that these cities can be ugly, murder ridden, crime ridden, and all around