The Montreal website Urban Expressions asked me a few quick questions when I was promoting Miss Montreal.

As soon as I saw this maple syrup display in Jean Talon market, I knew Jonah would disrupt one during a fight in Miss Montreal. It’s one of many locations I researched for the book.

Urban Expressions: What are you reading at the moment?

Howard: Freedomland, by Richard Price. An American master sets a crime novel in a housing project in New Jersey, where a young single mother claims someone hijacked her car while her four-year-old son was strapped in.

UE: What is your favourite book by a Montreal author or set in Montreal?

HS: It would probably be a Mordecai Richler book, either The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz or Barney’s Version. I also enjoyed The Main, by Trevanian, about a cop working the St. Lawrence beat.

UE: What crime novels, stories and literary fiction do you recommend for people looking for a good summer read?

HS: I favour darker, hard-boiled crime. In that category I recommend any new books by Lee Child, Michael Connelly, Robert Crais and Linwood Barclay. In terms of short stories, I highly recommend Elmore Leonard’s When the Women Come out to Dance. As for literary fiction, Michael Chabon would be my favourite. His newest, Telegraph Avenue, isn’t as easy to get into as some of his previous works but worth it in the end.

UE: When you were researching Miss Montreal, what were some of your favourite Montreal spots?

HS: Jean Talon Market was one; I spent time there researching a particular scene. And I went to one or two purveyors of smoked meat, which had nothing to do with research and everything to do with my stomach. I also spent a lot of time in the Plateau, where a fictional political party has its offices.

UE: Do you have any quirky writing rituals?

HS: My one ritual when I started my first book, Buffalo Jump, was to get up at 4:30 a.m. and write until my kids woke up at seven. I had a full-time job in corporate communications then and that was the only quiet time I had.

UE: What’s your favourite bookstore in Montreal?

HS: Paragraphe on McGill College.

UE: Complete the following sentence: “You know you’re in Montreal when…”

HS: You hear people switching in mid-sentence from English to French, or vice-versa, and they speak both languages perfectly.