Interesting setting (California, mainly in the first half of the 20th century), interesting time frame (covering from the end of the gunfighter era to the end of WWII), somewhat interesting characters, if rather too perfect (this is an issue I have with Diehl in other books too - see, Martin Vail in
Primal Fear/
Show of Evil/
Reign in Hell.) Everyone is heroic, or fantastically attractive, or dazzlingly good at what they do. (Except the bad guys, who drop before the heroes' hail of bullets just like they'd read the script in advance.)