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A review by nikkimf
Edwin of the Iron Shoes by Marcia Muller
5.0
I can’t remember when or how I picked up Edwin of the Iron Shoes, but it was probably in the late 1970s, when I could first afford to buy books. I had grand ideas about my life then. I’d join the NSA and figure out who was up to what. Or I could become a PI like Sharon McCone and catch bad guys. Sharon seemed impossibly old and wise.
I was never going to be Sharon. Somewhere along the way, our paths diverged so much that I stopped buying Ms. Muller’s books. Recently I came across an interview with Ms. Muller, arguably the first writer in the female hard-boiled mystery genre, and decided to give Sharon (and Marcia Muller) another chance. The writing is crisp, with that hard-boiled PI feel at its core, but without the edginess I dislike. I truly enjoyed rereading Edwin of the Iron Shoes.
(Add 10 years to the ages of the shop owners on Salem Street, BTW. I certainly don’t feel old now that I’m in my 60s. But I probably thought that was old in the 1970s.)
I was never going to be Sharon. Somewhere along the way, our paths diverged so much that I stopped buying Ms. Muller’s books. Recently I came across an interview with Ms. Muller, arguably the first writer in the female hard-boiled mystery genre, and decided to give Sharon (and Marcia Muller) another chance. The writing is crisp, with that hard-boiled PI feel at its core, but without the edginess I dislike. I truly enjoyed rereading Edwin of the Iron Shoes.
(Add 10 years to the ages of the shop owners on Salem Street, BTW. I certainly don’t feel old now that I’m in my 60s. But I probably thought that was old in the 1970s.)