The Blight Way

When I finished reading "The Bight Way" by Patrick McManus, I quickly went online to see of there were any more Sheriff Bo Tulley mysteries out there. Unfortunately not yet, but I'll be watching. It was a quick -- one long evening read, with a set of real-to-life characters and situations that made me laugh aloud many times. The mystery plot involving rural folks in a current-day Idaho town is lively and keeps you interested, as does the humerous dialog which McManus is so well known for in his non-fiction writings.

It takes a village, all right, but I won't ruin it for you to tell you why. The problem I had with THE BLIGHT WAY was with me and not with the author. I am so used to reading McManus nearly every month in Outdoor Life, that it took me awhile to forget the inept, lovable outdoorsman persona of McManus, and focus on a newer, more challenging other voice. This is not a complicated novel. Anyone can read it in a few hours. It is a wonderful diversion, a decent murder mystery, and I really expect it to be made into a tv movie, perhaps with Kevin Bacon playing Sheriff Bo Tully and Patrick McManus himself playing Pap, Bo Tully's father. If you want to get away from the evening news, the price of oil, the serious in-depth stories of the meaningless and superficial, this is the book to read. Find a nice, quiet place, turn off most of the lights, get comfortable, and get lost in the town of Blight, where the best restaurant in town fries everything, where the mob is muscling in, where there is an unlikely CSI team, and the most unusual gas station owner. Not only can you get gas, you can get gassed. But that's telling you more than I should.....

A great mystery combined with McManus' home spun wit and wisdom. How can it fail? Tulley has little concern for the letter of the law, but he metes out a rough-hewn justice for the residents of Blight. I hope another Bo Tulley book is coming soon!

Only Blight County Sheriff Bo Tully would give his seventy-five year-old father, Pap, a triple homicide for a birthday present. And only Pap, an ex-Sheriff of Blight County, would be grateful. I loved the ingenious scam and how Patrick tied everything up neatly at the end. Bo occassionally sounds a bit like Robert Parker's, Spenser, but that's a plus as far as I'm concerned and Pap is priceless. Great characters combined with beautiful settings, an involving plot line and humorous dialogue to make this book a gem. I'm recommending it to all my friends -- and to you.

You've gotta like a sheriff who still gets guilty pleasure from stomping frozen mud puddles and tries his best to avoid his ex-es. One of the funniest mysteries I have read in a long time. Not as edgy as Carl Hiaasen or Chris Moore, so more appropriate for us middle-aged folks. Like any new series, I expect this one will only get better as McManus writes more and more of them. A wacky, wonderful read. (By the way, a compilation of more humor essays is coming out this fall.)