Blight Way Part 1

The book that I chose to read was titled The Blight Way: A Sheriff Bo Tully Mystery, by Patrick F. McManus. This book is about Bo Tully, the sheriff of the small very poor Blight County in Idaho. Teamed up with Tully is Pap, Tully’s seventy-five year old father and former Blight County Sheriff. As a birthday present Tully takes Pap along to help investigate the murder of three men from Los Angeles. Two of these men were found in a car on a logging road, and the third was found some distance away draped over a fence post. While Sheriff Tully is acquainted with dealing with crime and murders he quickly comes to realize that this is not going to be his average murder case. We also meet several of the supporting characters: Buck Toole a bumbling deputy sheriff, Batim Scragg the county trouble maker, Susan Parker the attractive medical examiner that just moved into the county, and Dave Perkins a restaurant owner that claims to be an Indian tracker.

Blight Way Part 2

As the story progresses Sheriff Tully and Pap quickly realize that more is going on than just a triple homicide. The owner of the biggest cattle ranch in Blight County, Vern Littlefield, has gone missing. Littlefield’s two foremen, Mitchell and Kincaid, claim that he is in the mountains hunting elk, but Tully believes otherwise. To make things even stranger, before Littlefield “went hunting” he instructed hos two foremen to fire all the ranch hands because he is going to get out of the cattle business, in order to grow grapes. Tully learns that he is getting close to cracking this case wide open when somebody tries shooting his deputy Buck Toole, leaving him in the hospital. Tully thinks this bullet was meant for him, because he and Buck drive the same vehicle and the deputy got hit by mistake. We also begin to see Tully forming a romantic interest in Susan Parker. A prediction that Pap made shortly after the two met. So far the book has been amazing, as you read this book the plot gets thicker and more complicated. This book does a really good job at keeping in suspense, waiting for the next twist.

Blight Way Part 3

Things are finally starting to come together for Sheriff Tully. It would also appear that Pap is starting to rub off on Tully. Throughout the book Tully has been a very mild mannered, easy going guy but as he gets closer to solving the crime we find that some of his investigative methods may not exactly be legal. Tully also has come to realize that he has stumbled onto much more than a couple of murders. It turns out that a good part of the population from the town of Famine, a small community within Blight County, is involved in an organized drug ring and the Littlefield ranch is in the center of it all. The three men from Los Angeles were murdered because they were trying to muscle in on the production side of the drug business. I felt that the last part of the book was great. It amazed me how Tully transform from such an easygoing character to a man that was all business. I found it equally amazing was how quickly he could revert back as soon as the shooting was over. I also enjoyed how descriptive Patrick McManus was in the telling of the final fight scene, I was able to visualize it as I read. The best part about the end of the book is that McManus throws in a few twists right at the end. But to find out what they are you have to read the book yourself.

Blight Way Part 4

I would highly recommend this book to anyone. McManus does an amazing job of mixing a lot of humor into a murder mystery. The interaction between Tully’s and Pap is hilarious. Tully is the mild mannered artist, while Pap being from an older generation would have felt right at home in the Wild West. McManus does an excellent job of keeping the reader engaged and wondering what is going to happen next. Even though main character is a middle aged man, I think that adolescent boys would really enjoy this book. It has it all murder, action, mystery, suspense, and lots of humor. I think that this would be a good book to have in a high school special education classroom for students with reading problems. I say this because even though it has a more adult feel, it is very easy to read. On the Flesch-Kincaid scale it reads at a 6.2 grade level. I know that when I start my own classroom library this book will be on the shelf.