History Creator / PatrickMcManus

* UsefulNotes/TheOtherRainforest: [=McManus=] lived all his life in the Pacific Northwest, which naturally served as the setting for his works.

After the TurnOfTheMillennium, he turned to writing a series of comedic [[MysteryFiction mystery novels]] set in an even more fictionalized modern-day Blight starring County Sheriff Bo Tully and a supporting cast of oddballs; Tully's elderly father is essentially an AuthorAvatar. The sixth and last of these was published in 2014, after which [=McManus=] announced his retirement from writing and public life.

[-[[caption-width-right:300:Caricature of [=McManus=] by Al Hirschfeld.]]-]

* ShoutOut: The title of his second story-collection, ''They Shoot Canoes, Don't They?'', is a reference to ''Literature/TheyShootHorsesDontThey'' And as it happens, the volume's original cover image is also a homage, to the famous Creator/BillMauldin cartoon of a [=WWII=] soldier mercy-shooting his defunct Jeep.

* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: It took him a while to work out his cast of characters in the tales of his youth; one early story features a friend named "Stupe" Jones who made that one appearance and then disappeared for good, replaced with Crazy Eddie and Retch.

* HeroicDog: Averted with Pat's childhood dog, Strange. Pat had many stories about how he would get into trouble and call Strange, who would heroically ignore him.

* RoguishPoacher: affable swamp dweller Poke in the fourth Bo Tully book.

* BigBadWannabe: In the third Bo Tully book Lucas Kincaid breaks out of jail and goes after Bo. However his quest for revenge is more of a subplot as Bo investigates another, decades old murder. He and Kincaid never interact face to face throughout the novel and [[spoiler:Kincaid was tracked down and killed off-screen by one Deputy Pugh barely halfway into the book, although Bo doesn't find this out until the final chapter]].

* FratBro: In the second Bo Tully book a quarter of somewhat rowdy fraternity boys are at the snowed in ski lodge, with Bo hiring them to ski a route (while timing them) that he suspects the killer skied in order to try and determine the timeline of the case.

* RightForTheWrongReasons: In "The Huckleberry Murders" local woman Mage Poulsen accuses her ex-husbands ranch foreman of murdering and robbing him after he disappears. [[spoiler:The foreman claims her ex-husband is just on a long vacation. It turns out that he really is on vacation, but that the foreman ''has'' been cashing in/stealing his social security checks, and is involved in the murder of several local marijuana growers he'd hired because YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness.]]

* UglyGuyHotWife: In the Bo Tully mysteries, Bryan "Lurch" Proctor the crime scene technician is described as the holiest guy Bo knows but has a drop dead gorgeous girlfriend.

Patrick Francis [=McManus=] (August 25, 1933 – April 11, 2018) was an American humorist who wrote about outdoor activities such as hunting and fishing.

For many years [=McManus=] contributed comedic essays and short stories to (and served as an "editor-at-large" for) ''Outdoor Life'' magazine. Said stories, which have also been reprinted in several book collections, usually focus on his misadventures in the outdoors or recount highly-fictionalized anecdotes from his youth, which was mostly spent in the small town of Sandpoint ([[NoCommunitiesWereHarmed aka "Blight"]]), Idaho. [=McManus=]' dry style of humor has invited comparisons to Creator/MarkTwain and Creator/SJPerelman, among others.

After the TurnOfTheMillennium, he turned to writing a series of comedic [[MysteryFiction mystery novels]] set in an even more fictionalized modern-day Blight starring County Sheriff Bo Tully and a supporting cast of oddballs; Tully's elderly father is essentially an AuthorAvatar. The sixth and last of these was published in 2014, and [=McManus=] announced on his (now defunct) webpage that he considered himself essentially retired from writing.

[[quoteright:280:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/84425424_e7e1_4f8d_97e4_d71648d86429.jpeg]]
[-[[caption-width-right:280:Caricature of [=McManus=] by Al Hirschfeld.]]-]

--> ''My father had died when I was six, forgetting to leave word that I was to be in charge of the family from then on. So my mother stepped into the role of general, with Gram and [[BigBrotherBully the Troll]] as her next in command, respectively.''

%% * NostalgiaFilter

* ActionPrologue: The fifth Bo Tully book opens with Bo and Deputies Brian Pugh and Ernie Throep creeping through the snow-covered mountains with their rifles in search for a bank robber who fled up there, only for the first man they come across to be gunned down by an unseen rifleman (in a case of YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness) who then escapes unseen.

* ActionPrologue: The fifth Bo Tully book opens with Bo and Deputies Brian Pugh and Ernie Throep creeping through the snow-covered mountains with their rifles in search for a bank robber who fled up there, only for the first man they come across to be gunned down.

* PromotionToParent: Subverted in one short story where Patrick notes "My father had died when I was six, forgetting to leave word that I was to be in charge of the family from then on.So my mother stepped into the role of general, with Gram and [[EmbarrassingNickname the Troll]] (Patrick's sister) as her next in command, respectively.

* TheUglyGuysHotWife: In the Bo Tully mysteries, Bryan "Lurch" Proctor the crime scene technician is described as the holiest guy Bo knows but has a drop dead gorgeous girlfriend.

For many years [=McManus=] contributed comedic essays and short stories to (and served as an "editor-at-large" for) ''Outdoor Life'' magazine. Said stories, which have also been reprinted in several book collections, usually focus on his misadventures in the outdoors or recount highly-fictionalized anecdotes from his youth, which was mostly spent in the small town of Sandpoint ([[NoCommunitiesWereHarmed aka "Blight"]]), Idaho. He is also the author if a six book comedic mystery series following Blight,Couunty Sheriff Bo Tully and his supporting cast. [=McManus=]' dry style of humor has invited comparisons to Creator/MarkTwain and Creator/SJPerelman, among others.

After the TurnOfTheMillennium, he turned to writing a series of comedic [[MysteryFiction mystery novels]] set in an even more fictionalized modern-day Blight; the sheriff protagonist's elderly father is essentially an AuthorAvatar. The last of these was published in 2014, and [=McManus=] announced on his (now defunct) webpage that he considered himself essentially retired from writing.

For many years [=McManus=] contributed comedic essays and short stories to (and served as an "editor-at-large" for) ''Outdoor Life'' magazine. Said stories, which have also been reprinted in several book collections, usually focus on his misadventures in the outdoors or recount highly-fictionalized anecdotes from his youth, which was mostly spent in the small town of Sandpoint ([[NoCommunitiesWereHarmed aka "Blight"]]), Idaho. [=McManus=]' dry style of humor has invited comparisons to Creator/MarkTwain and Creator/SJPerelman, among others.

-->The idea, as I understood it, was to give a kid a nickname appropriate to his appearance or eccentricity of behavior, the crueler the better. A kid with warts, for example, might be known as 'Toad' or 'Frog' or simply 'Warty'. In the course of time, the warts might vanish, but the nickname would remain, continuing its work of warping the kid's personality and kicking holes in his psyche. Nicknames were fun.

-->"Man, this is hard! It's a good thing there's four of us to drag this here deer, 'cause otherwise I don't think we'd make it."\\
"Ain't ''s'posed'' to be but three of us draggin' this deer."\\
"Ain't s'posed to be nobody draggin' it!"

* ThePigPen: Rancid, who normally bathed only on leap years, and whose smell could "drive ticks off a dead badger".

%% * HeroicDog: Averted with Pat's childhood dog, Strange.

%% * ApronMatron: Pat's mother and grandmother.
* BigBrotherBully: His older sister Patricia, AKA "The Troll", who was also something of a pint-sized GeniusBruiser.

* SmellySkunk: In one story, Pat and his pal Crazy Eddie Muldoon accidentally catch a skunk in the pit they have dug. Eddie's father falls in the pit and gets a full dose of spray.

** From his book ''The Grasshopper Trap'':

** From his book ''The Grasshopper Trap:''
--->"..I have based the program on my own vast knowledge of fishing. In effect, it will be just as if the fisherman had me at his side, offering expert advice. As soon as I can figure out why the computer keeps telling outrageous lies and reminiscing about the old days, I'll get it patented."

Patrick Francis [=McManus=] (August 25, 1933 – April 11, 2018) was an American humorist who wrote about outdoor activities such as hunting and fishing; for many years he contributed comedic essays and short stories to (and served as an "editor-at-large" for) ''Outdoor Life'' magazine. Said stories, which have also been reprinted in several book collections, usually focus on his misadventures in the outdoors or recount highly-fictionalized anecdotes from his youth, which was mostly spent in the small town of Sandpoint ([[NoCommunitiesWereHarmed aka "Blight"]]), Idaho. [=McManus=]' dry style of humor has invited comparisons to Creator/MarkTwain and Creator/SJPerelman, among others.