The Crime on Cote des Neiges (1951) by David Montrose
Good Reads meta-data is 233 pages, rated 3.23 by 57 litizens.
DNA: O’ Canada.
Genre: krimi; Species: Noir.
Verdict: Round and round we go, and finally land.
Tagline: Montréal sans Quebecois.
Tough guy drinks himself silly, punches out old men, slaps women around and thinks that makes him Mike ‘The Man’ Hammer, or something. He goes hither and yon in English Montreal, never crossing Boulevard Saint Laurent. Whew! Everyone lies, everyone is crooked, everyone gets killed. Well, almost. Unravelling the plot is ingenious, but uninteresting.
It pulls a trick I had never encountered before with the doppelgänger, but then did not make much use of it. Tant pis.
It is all too obviously inspired by reading Mickey Spillane at the time. But it lacks Spillane’s snappy dialogue. There are two or three other titles by the author from the same period. But this one is probably enough for me.
‘Neiges’ is snow for those that must know. In Quebec the snow slope would that facing north.