Rating: 
Summary: Not Cornwell's Best But a Good Read
Review: Blow Fly is not Patricia Cornwell's best, but this book is a good read anyways. However, I was wanting a summary of her last Kay Scarpetta book-when Benton died, what the relationships were between people, and most importantly why Scarpetta left the coroner's office. It's been several years since the last book and I just didn't remember all the facts.
Rating: 
Summary: What happened to the ending?
Review: I wholeheartedly agree with the previous posters. In fact, one review sums up my feelings exactly - "When it finally did get going, toward the end, I kept looking at the number of pages left, wondering how it was possible that I was almost finished when there was obviously so much story unresolved." I thought for sure there was a 'To be continued' in my near future. I was shocked when the answers were supposedly crammed into a few short pages. Did Ms. Cornwell run up against a deadline? The book definitely seemed like merely a segue to the next installment, which will hopefully be much more fulfilling.
Rating:
Summary: One star too many
Review: All the celebrity must have gone to Patricia Cornwell's head. Not much planning went into this disaster. Here is a thought: Kay Scarpetta, get over yourself! Who would even want to be around this morose woman. I didn't care for (or like) any of the characters. What scares me is that the Wolfman is poised for yet another return. YIKES! Badly written, no ending and characters with dead personalities. Amen.
Rating:
Summary: Not up to the level of other Scarpetta novels
Review: This was the most disappointing Kay Scarpetta novel. I wish I had read the other reviews on this site before I bought the book. I probably would have bought it anyway, but maybe I would have waited until it came out in paperback. Fans will read the book to keep up with what is going on, but this is a disappointment. Much of the book is drawn out and tedious and then everything raps up in the last 10 pages. Lots of questions unanswered. Definitely just a bridge from the last book to the next one - hope the next one comes out quickly and improves upon this one.
Rating:
Summary: Blow Fly BLOWS!
Review: What happened? No, seriously, I want to know because I couldn't finish this godawful pile of dreck. On second thought, don't bother telling me, I don't care. Another reviewer suggested Ms. Cornwell fire her ghost-writer and get back to work. I second that. The characters are all wrong. The only mystery that kept me guessing was why there were still so many pages to read every time I checked. It took forever until I finally gave up. And I never give up! But save your money and time - both would be better spent on any number of good new books out there. Two that come to mind that were 1000 times more interesting and intriguing: "The DaVinci Code" by Dan Brown and "The Breathtaker" by Alice Blanchard.
Rating:
Summary: Another major disappointment...
Review: Don't wait for an ending to this book, there isn't one. It just stops...in Chapter 124 on page 465. Until that point the reader is jerked around from plot thread to plot thread, and never does have the satisfaction of seeing how they all connect. Far too much time and space is devoted to referencing times and places from past Scarpetta novels, leaving a reader who hasn't read those books first totally lost. The main character, Kay Scarpetta, once a competent, renowned and respected professional woman, has been reduced to a pathetic bundle of anxiety, now more suited to a soap opera than a serious crime novel. Worst of all, this book is written in third person, present tense; nearly all the verbs end in "s" except for a few references to past and future. This isolates the reader from the story and places him/her in the position of viewing the action from a distance, with an annoying narrator trying to describe every detail and nuance as if the viewer were both deaf and blind. It doesn't work. A good novel immerses the reader in its plot, this one locks him/her out. Isle of Dogs was a disaster, but I thought Cornwell might have learned from the feedback and turned back to her early, very effective style and strong characters. She didn't, and this one is even worse. If you must read it, get it from your local library. Don't waste your money.
Rating:
Summary: What was that????
Review: HUGE disappointment! I should have known from the moment that Patricia Cornwell started referring to the main character as "Scarpetta" that something was seriously wrong with this book. Finished it only out of morbid curiousity - could this actually get worse?
Rating:
Summary: Save Your Money
Review: Dear Ms. Cornwell- Couldn't you think of anything NEW?! What's
happened to you? This is a literary disgrace. I'm with the other readers, no more buying a book
simply on Cornwell's name and promise of more
Scarpetta fun.
Rating: 
Summary: Cornwell has not finished Scarpetta off yet but she's trying
Review: When I first starting reading the Scarpetta novels I thought it was fairly clear what the attract was to each story: a viscous but unusual murder, or series of murders was committed, and Dr. Kay Scarpetta, Chief Medical Examiner for the state of Virginia, would be called in to use her forensic expertise to discover and unravel the clues. Remember that this all began after "Quincy, M.E." went off into syndication and before "C.S.I." first aired, so detective stories hinging primarily on forensic investigation and detailed medical examinations of corpses was not as prominent as it was today. Plus there was the entire sub-text of Scarpetta as an extreme competent woman who was always the target of professional jealousy and/or political intrigue. For years my main complaint about the Scarpetta novels was that they rarely provided a satisfactory sense of catharsis, especially with regards to the despicable characters who were gunning for her professionally; they never seemed to get their comeuppance. But then the novels started to link up in strange and bizarre ways, and it became clear that Kay Scarpetta was the target of a complex and intricate conspiracy. No matter what the crime, and no matter how unrelated it seemed to what had happened in the previous novels, it turned out that it was all part of this giant conspiracy. From this perspective it is not surprising that there is no true catharsis at the end of any particular novel, because in terms of the big picture there is always more fun to come. However, this leads to the key question with regards to this concerted effort to destroy Kay Scarpetta: Why is author Patricia Cornwell out to get her own creation? These novels are becoming more and more like Greek tragedies where the gods look down and laugh, and I entertain the notion of profiling Cornwell to figure out why she is destroying her character and this series. Scarpetta is no longer employed by the state of Virginia, and her character is no more prominent than any other in the novel. More importantly, she has not cooked a nice meal in a long time, which is as telling adetail about her deterioration as anything. "Blow Fly" is a rather ironic title for this novel because, as most of these reviews will attest, Cornwell is blowing it and her readers, who have lost the faith, are flying away in droves. When you get to the BIG SURPRISE REVELATION in this recent novel your honest reaction may well be (a) give me a break and (b) somebody put Scarpetta out of her misery before this insult is added to her accumulation of injuries. Even worse, what limited amount of catharsis there is in "Blow Fly" happens "off stage." For those of us who have literally been waiting years for certainly people to meet their richly deserved ends, being told about it rather than getting to enjoy the moment is yet another slap in the face from the author. My wife literally went back and reread the ending, thinking she had missed something, and, clearly, she is not alone if leaping to that conclusion. If we were talking a television series the question would be when did the Scarpetta novels "jump the shark" (the reference is to the infamous episode of "Happy Days" when Fonzie jumped the shark and fans of the series consider it all downhill from there). For many it will be the point in "Blow Fly" where the surprise revelation comes or when one of the villains gets out of an impossible situation. However, for me it was before this novel, when Lucy had a shotgun on one of the villains and left them behind in a motel room to go rescue her Aunt Kay. I knew enough to blow the person away, not just because they deserved to die, but because you do not leave a bad person alive behind you when you go off on a rescue mission. "Blow Fly" has to be the most disappointing Scarpetta novel to date and I shudder to think what is in store for the next installment, which I would say has to be the grand finale except I see from my review of "The Last Precinct" that I thought his novel would have to be the end of the Chandonne plot line. I will continue reading, not so much because I have latent masochistic tendencies, but out of a sense of narrative completeness and a commitment to the idea that you make sure the body is (truly) dead and buried before you walk away. But I take no more pleasure in the experience at this point.
Rating:
Summary: as tired as the author looks in her terrible backcover photo
Review: I loved her first few books but this one was awful. I'm tired of reading about the same old villains. Can't she think up some new ones? The title Blow Fly suggests that we might learn something interesting about time of death from the study of blow flies but no, we just hear about the same old baddies. Try a Fly for the Prosecution, a nonfiction book about time of death and flies.
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