Abstract

This project recreates the real-life events surrounding
Harry Davis’s murder in July of 1946. Davis, the kingpin of
Montreal’s underworld, functioned as an intermediary
between the city’s organized crime and corrupt city
officials. His murder by fellow mobster Joe Miller provoked
a period of civic and legal reform, starting with the
hiring of the incorruptible Pacifique “Pax” Plante as Chief
of police and head of the special unit known as the
Morality Squad.
The unit had been designed to take down the city’s
organized crime, but served as little more than a pretense
to appease upright taxpayers. After decades of cooperation
and payoffs between the police, politicians and the
underworld, civic unrest lead Plante to step in to cleanse
both the city and the police department of immoral and
illegal activities, vowing to shine a light on the “Feydeau
farce” that was the judicial system.
Plante’s hiring, however, soon proved to be yet another
pretense, as he was quickly relieved of his position,
restoring the balance of power to corruption and
profiteering.