Irontown Blues

I came very close to not finishing this book... several times. It's very slow-paced and overly enamored of the detective noir and Golden Age science fiction tropes and authors on which it's based. In the 1980s, SF books using these tropes might have been believable, but it's very difficult now to believe that a future Earth civilization which has advanced far enough in the future to have colonies on the Moon and Mars would still have a culture which is heavily-influenced by that particular period in history (the USA in the 1930s-40s).

The action does pick up in the second half of the book, and the plot is saved from being completely hackneyed by going off in an unsignalled direction, and it gets points for having an unvarnished assessment of Heinleinian philosophy. However, this book is likely to be best enjoyed by those whose own cultural Golden Age occurred in the 1940-1990 span; younger readers may find it difficult to relate to the cultural references and to suspend their disbelief.