First, the positives: I picked this up off the library shelf out of pure cover attraction. I'd never heard of the author before, but was looking for books to read set in Montreal. The author grew up here and it shows; his knowledge of Montreal was occasionally so detailed as to be very funny. The roads suck, there are traffic cones everywhere, the squirrels will eat your garden before you do—so true, Howard. I also learned a bit: that St. Laurent is called The Main in Anglo circles; the 40 is called the Metropolitan; the term "two solitudes," which had somehow eluded me before now. The protagonist goes to places I know very well. That is so fun to see in a book. Is this how New Yorkers feel?

I also found his writing style absorbing. This was the easiest read I've had in my hands for a while and it broke me out of a months-long reading slump. I would loosely classify it as neo-noir; it's written in a noir-reminiscent style and has character beats as you would expect from an old Chandler novel. There's a lot of action; the plot is not trying to be complex but is trying to be propulsive and succeeds. It's paced very well. There's a bit of a deux ex machina for the sake of badassery, and our main man gets laid with his face beat in and everything—these are the sorts of genre beats one might expect also from a book written 60-80 years ago. Take it at face value and it's a good enough time.

This said, the book aims to tackle Jewish–Muslim tensions and rising white supremacy in Quebec, and creates a tidy little plot trying to address all three. I don't think it did this well. It's a crime novel. Someone has to be cast as the criminals. The book relies heavily on profiling and reductivity in order to advance the plot—not just of the Muslim characters, but most troublingly so. I am neither Jewish nor Muslim, and I came to Montreal after this book was written; to what extent there exists Jewish–Muslim tensions in actual Montreal today, or did in 2013, is outside my experience. With this disclaimed, I found myself casting immediate doubt on the book's political frame. The way the murder was set up—a Jewish reporter apparently beaten to death by Afghani and Syrian immigrants—felt like a deeply racist and xenophobic setup. The main reason I kept reading was the immediate distaste the protagonist shows for the cleverly named QAQ, a white supremacist political party named in obvious parody of Quebec's actual right-wing CAQ. Of course the murder wasn't as straightforward as it seemed, but those complications were introduced late, and I didn't like the solution. 

There is an intention here that is clearly spelled out in the book's last pages: the book thinks it's challenging prejudices. Perhaps it challenged some, but it blatantly affirmed others. The book may be informed by politics, but I can't recommend this book for its political frame. At the <em>very</em> least, it has aged poorly.