Mystery writer Sue Grafton has described Marcia Muller, the creator of the popular Sharon McCone detective series, as "the founding mother of the contemporary female hardboiled private eye." Most readers would agree, for when Muller introduced her signature character in the 1977 book Edwin of the Iron Shoes, she changed the genre forever. In the years since, Muller has quietly built the McCone mysteries into one of the most successful and popular series of its type. However, she remains less well known than some of her female peers. "Still less celebrated than Sue Grafton or Sara Paretsky, Muller quietly keeps getting better and better," Charles Champlin noted in the Los Angeles Times Book Review.

Marcia Muller, who was born and raised in a middle-class home in Detroit, became interested in the world of books and writing at an early age. "Ever since I could read, I'd wanted to write...