Perhaps because The Shadow Riders was written to turn immediately into a television movie, it skimps on L'Amour's typically strong portrayal of setting. For every evocative description like that of the town of Refugio — "a muddy, rutted alleyway between two rows of nondescript shacks, sodden with rain" — there are several cliched descriptions empty of sensual or emotional content. The narrator at one point, for example, tells his readers, "It was almighty still, and there was nobody around a body could see."

L'Amour is working with a setting other than the West — the gulf coast of Texas — but, aside from writing about whooping cranes and having one villain fall in a swampy pit, fails to take full advantage of this new setting.

Another related change is an increase in dialogue. This, too, may be rooted in the quick conversion to a television script, but it...