One's a healer and one's a ex-prostitute (I believe there's an ex-ho in Monster as well), so you can pretty much tell from there how their characterization is going to run. As usual, females play the "almost-but-not-quite-equal" role, despite the actions of Faye. Her simplistic speech pattern when we are inside her head need finesse as she progresses through her development. I enjoyed Faye, the grey-eyed talented Okie kid who grows into her power, but I think I loved her because I root for grrl-power, and not because the characterization was done particularly well. I get the feeling he didn't research the 1920s for this book-more like he watched a couple of Al Capone movies. I don't know a lot about the 20s, but it almost seems if Correia is pulling on American political attitudes from the 40s-50s(post WWII) in his characterizations of Germans and Japanese and the political divisions. There's a lot of odd ethnic referrals going on as well that make me vaguely uncomfortable. There's more detail on guns then there are physical characteristics of setting and mood, critical elements of the detective noir. One reviewer hit it on the head when he noted that there is a lack of world building, and tossed-in 1920s vocabulary is supposed to stand for setting.
Unfortunately, Hard Magic doesn't measure up to Correia's first series, Monster Hunters International.
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