From Jim Thompson to Patricia Highsmith to Jean-Patrick Manchette, the great writers of noir fiction are all, at base, existentialists. Noir writers interrogate notions of truth and meaning in a world that seems antagonistic toward both.

In The Devil and the Detective, Montreal author John Goldbach foregrounds this motif and gives it a frankly postmodern spin. The plot is straightforward: a woman named Elaine Andrews asks private investigator Robert (“Bob”) James for help in tracking down the person or persons who stabbed her wealthy husband to death in their home. All the requisite noir elements are present: the femme fatale, the cop who may or may not be corrupt, the widow’s lover (who is missing and possibly dead), and a pair of duplicitous lawyers. There is also a sidekick for the detective, an overly enthusiastic flower-delivery boy who has a tendency to pepper his speech with Latin.

But the plot is hardly the point here. Goldbach acknowledges his priorities with his twin epigraphs: the first from French Revolutionary politician and orator Antoine Barnave, the second from the Buster Keaton silent film Sherlock Jr. The conflation of high and low culture permeates the book, which reads as if Samuel Beckett had written The Maltese Falcon.

The author infuses Bob’s first-person narration with hesitations and qualifications: “Darren got into the car and fell into his seat, heavily, I thought, for such a skinny guy.” The appositional phrase, “I thought,” which crops up continuously – even when Bob is referring to verifiable facts – lends the entire story a contingent aspect, suggesting that truth is relative and resolution elusive. The epigraph from the Buster Keaton movie (“By the next day the mastermind had completely solved the mystery – with the exception of locating the pearls and finding the thief”) is echoed in the novel’s closing pages, when Bob’s despondent associate says they’ve failed in cracking the case. “Well, yes, probably,” Bob responds in typical fashion, “But we know more about it than we did in the beginning, I think.”

Goldbach’s comedic register slides from mordant to slapstick, and the irony is laid on thick. It is impossible to tell whether the rampant inconsistencies – Bob is astute enough to recognize that Elaine is young and sexy simply from hearing her voice on the phone, but later is unable to guess the age of a waitress in a café – are intentional or accidental; it is also ultimately immaterial. Goldbach is interested in self-consciously playing with genre conventions rather than ensuring his plot is tightly calibrated. The extent to which readers enjoy the results will depend upon whether they find this approach innovative or merely self-indulgent.