Avalanche: A Sheriff Bo Tully Mystery (Sheriff Bo Tully Mysteries) (Hardcover)

~ (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

An engaging romp that recalls the best work of Bill DeAndrea, the second Bo Tully whodunit (after 2006's The Blight Way) from humor columnist McManus sends the Blight County, Idaho, sheriff into the mountains after local woman Blanche Wilson reports her husband, Mike, missing from the upscale wilderness lodge the couple run. Tully heads into the field to investigate with his father (and predecessor as local lawman), a trip almost cut fatally short by an avalanche. Suspicious of the timing of that apparently natural event, Tully soon finds the corpse of Mike Wilson's business partner and a whopping motive for Blanche to have done away with them both: a multimillion-dollar insurance policy. Crime solving takes a back seat to the banter between Tully and his father ("Pap"), as well as the numerous attractive women they encounter along the way, but the solution is a logical if unsurprising one. (Mar.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Blight County, Idaho, sheriff Bo Tully, his dad, and friend Dave Perkins head to West Branch Lodge to check out a missing-person report. Mike Wilson, a co-owner of the business, stormed out of the lodge after a fight with his wife, Blanche. Tully and his dad, Pap, the lovable but corrupt former Blight County sheriff, narrowly miss being killed by an avalanche on their way to the lodge. When Mike turns up dead, Tully has a murder investigation on his hands, but he is stuck at the lodge until the road is cleared. In town, Mike's business partner is also found dead. The partners had purchased key-man insurance, and Blanche is the beneficiary--leaving her the chief suspect. But how did she get to town with the road blocked? Quirky characters and plenty of wit enliven this folksy mystery from the author of several collections of outdoor humor. Sue O'Brien
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster; First Printing edition (March 27, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 141653265X
• ISBN-13: 978-1416532651
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.5 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #319,241 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Outdoor humor at it's best, March 28, 2007

By	Robert Whitney "Roberto" (Deltona, Florida USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

We became a McManus fan back when we discovered his columns in Outdoor Life and in Field & Stream. Being avid backpackers and canoeist, we started taking his stories to read in the evening around the campfire on the Allagash Wilderness Waterway and the Appalachtian Trail.

Avalanche is another wonderfully humorous tale in his new, Sheriff Bo Tully series. By now, we look forward to meeting again his great cast of characters Tully, Pap and Tracker Dave. Patrick's 15 or so books are rich in good outdoor in humor. I recommend this new book highly.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars fun Blight Country police procedural, March 16, 2007

By	Harriet Klausner - See all my reviews (#1 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Blight County, Idaho resident Blanche Wilson reports her spouse Mike is missing. After obtaining information from Blanche, co-owner of the Branch Lodge with her husband, Sheriff Bo Tully obtains the assistance of his father retired sheriff Pap and their tracker friend Dave to go into the nearby mountains to find Mike, but first plan a couple days asking questions while relaxing at the affluent wilderness lodge.

However, their trek proves dangerous when the father and son team barely survives an avalanche. Disturbed by the rockslide mostly because he does not trust coincidence; the trio finds Mike's corpse, which turns the missing person investigation into a homicide case. They soon learn that Blanche has multimillion reasons to see Mike dead.

The second Blight Country police procedural (see THE BLIGHT WAY) is lighthearted fun as the hero sees a chance for a free soak in a hot tub while reading Danielle Steele's newest tale. However, the suspicious occurring avalanche changes his R&R concept as he and his companions believe someone wanted them dead. The whodunit is enjoyable though somewhat straightforward, but takes a back seat to the camaraderie between father and son.

Harriet Klausner

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars What McManus did for (to?) the outdoors, he does now for law and order, April 26, 2007

By	Huntinghouse - See all my reviews

For those of us who read McManus's non-fiction and miss Retch, Crazy Eddie, The Troll, Rancid and Strange, we can now console ourselves with Sheriff Bo Tully, Dave the fake Indian (faking it to build a casino), Pap, Lurch and Clarence in his new mystery series. AVALANCHE, the second book in the series, has the trademark McManus deadpan humor, outdoor misadventure (tent camping in Idaho in November), singular characters, deceptively excellent writing and a darn good whodunnit, too. So get on down to Grogan's War Surplus for a few supplies and trek up to Blight County for a grand time.