History Creator / PatrickMcManus

* FriendlySniper: Deputy Brian Pugh (a decent marksman and tracker who is the one assigned to go after a ColdSniper who broke out of jail and is going after Bo in the 3rd mystery book, a job Brian succeeds at), Pap Tully, Mountain Man Hoot and restaurant owner Dave Perkins in the ''Bo Tully'' mysteries are also outgoing marksmen.

-->"I've paddled my last canoe," Hoov growled. "No, what we'll do is, I'll borrow a rowboat from my neighbor."

* GilliganCut: Happens occasionally in his stories. For example:

** Another memorable example comes in ''Of Fire and the Night'', after Pat and Crazy Eddie Muldoon fail to build a campfire and decide instead to try out Eddie's deep-sea diving-outfit.

** Another memorable example comes in ''Of Fire and the Night'', after Pat and Crazy Eddie Muldoon fail to build a campfire and decide instead to try out Eddie's deep-sea diving-outfit. The next paragraph:
-->"A deep-sea diving-outfit. Sounded good to me."
-->"As I lay in bed that night (ocassionally coughing up water)..."

* ActionPrologue: The fifth Bo Tully book opens with Bo and Deputies Brian Pugh and Ernie Thorpe 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.

* 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 is tracked down and killed off-screen by Deputy Pugh barely halfway into the book, although Bo doesn't find this out until the final chapter]].

* DivorceIsTemporary: Zigzagged in the Bo Tully books. Bo's parents married, divorced, eventually remarried then divorced again.

* FratBro: In the second Bo Tully book a quartet of well-off, somewhat rowdy fraternity boys are at the snowed in ski lodge, and Bo hires 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 and to keep them from annoying the lodge owner.
* FriendlySniper: Deputy Brian Pugh (a decent marksman and tracker who is the one assigned to go after a ColdSniper who broke out of jail and is going after Bo in the 3rd book, a job Brian succeeds at), Pap Tully, Mountain Man Hoot and restaurant owner Dave Perkins in the ''Bo Tully'' mysteries are also outgoing marksmen.

* NativeAmericanCasino: In the Bo Tully books restaurant owner Dave Perkins claims to be part-Native American in order to get permission to start one of these, although no one believes him.

* OccamsRazor: When a suspect in one of Bo Tully's claim about [[ContrivedCoincidence "Convergences" of facts]] being responsible for making him look bad Bo belatedly thinks of this response a couple chapters later;

* ScarilyCompetentTracker: Several appear in the Bo Tully books. Dave Perkins is the go to tracker the sheriffs department hires whenever they need to trace the movements of a victim or killer through the woods. Lucas Kincaid is a villainous version (just prior to the beginning of the first book he tracked down a fleeing rival criminal through the dark). Brian Pugh might also count considering how well he does when Bo sends him after Lucas.

* SiblingsInCrime: Lem and Lister Scragglier in the first Bo Tully book.

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

* RightForTheWrongReasons: In "The Huckleberry Murders" local woman Madge 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.]]

* WriteWhoYouKnow: He writes about his childhood and adult life in Sandpoint, Idaho, which he rechristened "Blight".

* ActionPrologue: The fifth Bo Tully book opens with Bo and Deputies Brian Pugh and Ernie Thorpe 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.

* 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 is tracked down and killed off-screen by 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 quartet of somewhat rowdy fraternity boys are at the snowed in ski lodge, and Bo hires 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.
* FriendlySniper: Deputy Brian Pugh (a decent marksman and tracker who is the one assigned to go after a ColdSniper who broke out of jail and is going after Bo in the 3rd book, a job Brian succeeds at), Pap Tully, Mountain Man Hoot and restaurant owner Dave Perkins in the ''Bo Tully'' mysteries.

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. He died in 2018 at the age of 84.

** The title of his second story-collection, ''They Shoot Canoes, Don't They?'', is a reference to ''Literature/TheyShootHorsesDontThey''. And what's more, that book's original cover illustration is also a homage, to the famous Creator/BillMauldin cartoon of a [=WWII=] soldier mercy-shooting his defunct Jeep.

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

** 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.

** Another story describes an instance when he and his fishing companion Retch Sweeney decide to go skinny-dipping in a mountain stream that proves to be ice-cold. They emerge from the water just as a small group of mushroom enthusiasts come walking past, and [=McManus=] expresses his relief that "a particularly bad twelve-letter word had frozen on Retch's lower lip and didn't thaw out until we were in the car driving home."

* WriteWhoYouKnow: He writes about his childhood and adult life in Sandpoint, Idaho, which he rechristened "Blight".
* YouCanPanicNow: The trick is to do it while standing in place, rather than running blindly into the next tree. Or state.

* LaxativePrank: In "The Fly" Pat tells of being a night janitor in college, and the steps that the department secretaries took to keep the janitors from pilfering their desk goodies:

* LaxativePrank: "The Fly" tells of being a night janitor in college, and the steps that the department secretaries took to keep the janitors from pilfering their desk goodies:

* HenpeckedHusband: He often depicts himself as one of these.