Rating: 
Summary: Would have been better not to write this book
Review: I used to be a fan of Key Scarpetta, but this time...To make it short - Patricia Cornwell is running out of ideas, and this book is a sad prove of the fact. Do not even bother reading the book.
Rating:
Summary: Forget it!
Review: By far her worst effort. The plot comes across as a poor takeoff from the Dallas TV series of the 70's. Like the TV series it lacks creativity and imagination. Most unfortunately her main characters Scarpetta, Lucy and Marino seem as shallow images in this novel. They never seem to come to life, nor does 'Blow Fly'. The idea that Benton is still alive, and that Lucy, Marino and Senator Lord know, but that Kay is kept in the dark seems so far fetched. Much like Bobby coming back to life on Dallas, and everything in between some sort of dream. Skip this book. I enjoyed her earlier novels but the last four have definitely been duds, and this one is at the bottom.
Rating:
Summary: THE WORST BOOK OF THE DECADE
Review: BELIEVE THE REVIEWS!!!! So bad, words can't even begin to describe it. WARNING: IF YOU'RE GOING TO READ THIS, THEN BORROW FROM THE LIBRARY. DON'T WASTE A DIME ON THIS. I was a HUGE Cornwell fan, but this book is, without a doubt, one of the top five WORST books I've read not only this year BUT THE PAST DECADE. PATRICIA, DON'T YOU TAKE ANY PRIDE IN YOUR WORK? The only reason they let you publish this is because of who you are. BAD!!! BAD!!!! BAD!!!
Rating:
Summary: Terrible!
Review: A major disappointment from a talented writer. An avid reader of Ms. Cornwell, I was looking forward to "Blow Fly", the latest in her Kay Scarpetta series. This book was a complete disappointment. Forensic skills, a hallmark of this series, are completely overlooked in this novel. Another hallmark, the sense of "family" created by Cornwell for Scarpetta and her associates is sadly lacking. Only in the last few chapters of this book do her characters meet as a unit.
I feel taken advantage of by the continued, never-ending, saga of Jean Baptiste-Chandonne. This character has long since outlasted any interest a reader may hold. Cornwell seems to be on "auto-pilot".
This book meanders between reliance on long-standing characters and an attempt to introduce international espionage (shades of Robert Ludlum). Dozens of pages are spent on developing storylines that are abruptly and unrealistically resolved. I did not recognize who these long-standing characters had become. They have all become self-absorbed and unlikable. A waste of paper, money and this reader's time.
Get back to basics, Patricia!
Rating:
Summary: Not up to her usual standard
Review: Cornwell shifts point of view here, from protagonist Kay Scarpetta's first person vulnerable (which made the earlier books so interesting) to third person boring. She devotes endless pages to minutiae that have no bearing on the plot, and describes the characters in one-dimensional terms (Scarpetta is "lonely," "brave," and adored by all who know her, while the rather pathetic Chandonne is invariably presented as loathsome because of his congenital abnormalities). Strangest of all, it seems that around page 440 Cornwell realized that she had to start wrapping things up, so within 10 pages or so she whips her characters into line with almost no emotional satisfaction for the reader. One particularly frustrating outcome is that of the three nasty villains, one is disposed of offhand, another dies offstage (as we are later told), and the third escapes (also not shown), no doubt to induce us to buy the next Scarpetta book. Ms. Cornwell, get back to where you were before!
Rating:
Summary: So I am not the only one?
Review: I was beginning to think I was the only one that did not enjoy Blow Fly. BIG DISAPPOINTMENT!! I was waiting for months for the next Kay Scarpetta only to be let down. This novel is extremely hard to follow, it jumps around too much and the characters are so pathetic...what happened to Kay Scarpetta??...a woman so on the ball, so sure of herself. I should have read the reviews before I bought this one. Hopefully Patricia Cornwell will get back on track.
Rating:
Summary: Truly Sad...
Review: I, too, should have waited for the reviews instead of pre-ordering this stinker. I have admired the work that it takes to write the intricate novels that have been the forte of Ms. Cornwell and wait patiently b/c it must take considerable time and effort to write her better 'reads'. I, too, kept waiting to find the details of what I had imagined Kay's next move to be after her dismissal from Richmond. Alas, and woe is me, us, them, her... Here is to hoping that Ms. Cornwell does not go the route of 'Bobby in the shower' of Dallas fame in her next Scarpetta endeavor. Ms. Cornwell, please do the next one justice even if it is to be the end of the line for this series.
Rating:
Summary: What the _ _ _ _ did I just read!
Review: I finished "Blow Fly" last night and was really disappointed. The first 80% of the book did nothing but dredge up old characters and plots. There was very little if any forensic work which is the reason I read Cornwell. The ending felt like I fell over a cliff. When I read the last page, I wondered "What the (blank) did I just read?". Patricia Cornwell will now join James Patterson as two authors I will not subject myself to until they clean up their acts! If you like a good forensic read, check out Kathy Reichs.
Rating:
Summary: Sloppy at best
Review: I hope Cornwell reads some of these reviews and will try to improve for her next Scarpetta book. Next time I hope she won't rush through the writing and will try to give us a novel up to par with "The Body Farm" or "Postmortem." As a Scarpetta fan, I can not even describe how disappointed I am at how far Cornwell has fallen. She needs to get back to the basics that made her early works a triumph.
I never liked the werewolf storyline, but being from Baton Rouge, I decided to read this one in spite of that angle to see how our homegrown serial killer inspired Ms. Cornwell. The answer: Not very much. She tells us that the Baton Rouge police and the task force are incompetent instead of showing us. So the coroner doesn't trust them -- why? Characters complain about the poor communication, whereas the "old" Cornwell would have demonstrated this through dialog. She spends so much time in the head of the werewolf character that she never fleshes out actual plot lines.Other lapses indicate just plain sloppiness on her part. Why is Scarpetta sick of still being in her black suit when three pages before she spent the night in the coroner's guest house, with her suitcase? Would she really not have changed her clothes?
On top of that, Cornwell creates all these characters just to have them killed off "off stage" in a hurried attempt to wrap up most of the storylines in the last few pages ("You don't have to worry about any of them anymore, Kay. They're all dead.") Please. No deadline is worth publishing this crap. It's an insult to her readers.
Rating:
Summary: I Should've Known Better
Review: This isn't the first time one of Cornwell's novels left me feeling as if she she had better things to do than to finish writing her book. Blow Fly has such a compelling title, I thought I'd give her another try. It was waste of time and money. Those wishing to read a well-written series featuring a female forensic anthropogist/consultant would be well-advised to check out Kathleen J. Reichs's Temperance Brennan series. In my opinion, Reichs's novels are everything Cornwell's are not.
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