The Shadow Riders: A Novel

Just one quick comment: I liked the movie better than the book. Probably because of the people who starred in the made for TV movie--Tom Selleck, Sam Eliot, his wife Katherine Ross, and Ben Johnson as their outlaw uncle. Good book and good movie.

I read this book a long time before the movie with Sam Elliot was made, so I like the book better. But both the movie and the book are great. Most of the differences are in what happens while the men are searching for the kidnapped women. Probably you'll like one better than the other, but which one you like better will most likely depend on whether you like reading or watching tv better. In a nutshell, two brothers who served on opposite sides of the Civil War, return home to find that renegades have kidnapped their siblings and also a woman that one of the men planned to marry. This same group have stolen a lot of other people; planning to take them to Mexico to sell (the brothers don't know that at first) and the two brothers take off after them to bring them home.

Mac Traven grew up in Texas, served in the Rangers, and even purchased the 23,000-acre ranch on which his family now lives. But when the Civil War came, his beliefs, like Sam Houston's, bade him follow the Union, while his younger brother Dal chose the Confederacy. Now it's 1865 and he's on his way home, not sure if he'll be welcome but determined to at least assure himself that his kin came through alive. Passing through a dismal robbers' nest of a town in western Arkansas, he links up with a wounded Dal, who faces a lynching by some mustered-out Union soldiers eager to get hold of his horse and gear, and they journey on together. But before long they learn that a band of disaffected and unsurrendered Rebs led by Col. Henry T. Ashford (a man with whom Dal once rode) is working its way down through east Texas, stealing cattle, horses, and young women to sell into slavery in Mexico. Among the captives is Mac and Dal's little sister Gretchen, their brother Jesse (earmarked for labor in the mines), and Kate Carlisle, with whom Dal had something of an understanding before he left for the army. Fighting men are scarce in Texas, with so many young ones killed or wounded in the War and most of the survivors still on their way home. It's up to the two Travens, assisted by their ne'er-do-well uncle Happy Jack, to catch up with Ashford's band before he can get over the border or rendezvous with a ship that will take his prisoners to Mexico. Meanwhile, the courageous and resourceful Kate is doing her best to stall the advance or get herself some help in the form of a black-sheep uncle of her own, former ship's captain (and reputed pirate) Martin Connery, who now owns a prosperous ranch below Victoria and stands aloof from all human conflicts. This fast-moving tale follows the Travens and Kate as the renegades move steadily south, introducing the reader by the way to the terrain and history of a part of Texas that many may not have been aware of. Although I tend to question whether Southerners--no matter how degraded--would ever have gotten into the woman-stealing business, I enjoyed the book itself; L'Amour is a master of pace and his prose is highly readable and at times almost bardic. Oddly, given that the book came before the TV-movie The Shadow Riders (which I also recommend), it's dedicated to the latter's cast and crew. This would be a good title with which to begin your acquaintance with one of the most successful and widest-read Western authors of the 20th century.

This book is a classic good guy vs. bad guy western action book. If you like any of Louis L'Amour's other books, you will love The Shadow Riders. This book is a great example of the qualitites that you can find in most of his books. Most of the characters show a love of family, trust, friendship, a love for nature, and dedication. I would reccomend this book to anyone that wants to read a great book filled with action and suspense.