Rating: 
Summary: Wish I Would Have Read These Reviews Before Buying the Book!
Review: I really did NOT like this book. I'm a big fan of the Scarpetta series and was looking forward to the newest entry. However, Blow Fly is not up to Cornwell's usual standards. My main complaints:
- the use of present tense is annoying
- the short choppy chapters are probably meant to keep the book screaming along at a quick pace, but they interrupted the flow of the story
- what kind of ending was that??!?
- don't feel there was any real character development except for that of Jean-Baptiste.
- do we really need to spend the first half of the book re-capping the prior books in the series?BIG DISAPPOINTMENT!
Rating: 
Summary: That's it?
Review: Where's the ending? Did they leave out some chapters? Did she just get bored and decide to quit mid story? I love her books - this was such a disapointment.
Rating:
Summary: I see it isn't just me - P.U. this book stinks
Review: I am not even through reading this book yet and I came to Amazon to see if it was just me who doesn't like this book. I have read every single Scarpetta book and like all of you I preorder ASAP and anxiously await the new one... This is written ALL WRONG. Was not every other book written in the 1st person????? I see about 95% of the reviews are negative. Do I even bother finishing?? I don't run to pick it up or stay up all night for "just one more page" so perhaps I should throw in the towel.
Rating:
Summary: Poor contination of the Scarpetta/Chardonne ugly soap opera
Review: That we've had to wait a few years since the "Last Precinct" [skipping the wretched non-Scarpetta "Isle of Dogs" and Cornwell's non-fiction book about Jack the Ripper] made us anxious to devour Kay Scarpetta's return. Alas, Kay is little more than a bit player as first niece Lucy, as head of her own investigative firm, then a resuscitated Benton Wesley (what a rip-off!!) steal most of the scenes. Pete Marino is around for little more than overweight color; and a few Louisiana characters trying to solve a series of killings there also play minor roles. If anything, the horrible Jean-Baptiste Chardonne, back from "Black Notice" is the star. While supposedly he was blinded in his unsuccessful attack on Scarpetta, he looks out windows and reads notes, so what gives? He manages to escape from prison while on death row (seriously?!) and apparently is still at large at the end, so something tells me we haven't seen the last of him. This dark work sees Scarpetta as just a shell of her former self; dwells on Lucy as some sort of goddess; and disappoints from short chapter to short chapter (124 in all). We sensed with few pages remaining that the end would be just a brush-off -- and it was. "Blow Fly" is hardly entertaining, poorly written, uninspired, and uninteresting -- maybe the worst Scarpetta of all. For our money, we think the publishers owe the public a closer scrutiny of this author's future work and see if it really warrants publication. This one will soon go to the overprinted bin, along with Isle of Dogs, where it belongs.
Rating:
Summary: Who wrote this?
Review: Patricia Cornwell simply could not have written this book. If she did, then she's totally out of touch with her characters and their behavior. From a long-time fan, I'm recommending that she stop this farce with a ghost writer and get back to basics. Add some science back in (all of which is appallingly lacking from this book) and bring the characters back to their roots. Both Lucy and Marino keeping things from Kay? I doubt it. Until I hear that Cornwell is back on target, I'm extremely happy that Kathy Reichs is keeping her Temperance Brennan series alive and well.
Rating:
Summary: Blow Fly - Blows !!
Review: I've read every book in the Scarpetta series and as a HUGE fan I pre-ordered this book and eagerly awaited my copy. I was so excited the day it arrived and ripped open the box in anticipation. Unfortunately there is no other word to decribe this book other than - TERRIBLE. I'm almost offended that Patricia Cornwell thinks she can deliver this poorly written garbage to her loyal fan base without backlash. Patricia Cornwell should spend less time trying to uncover the secret plot to kill Princess Diana, or uncover the true identify of Jack the Ripper and focus some attention on the charector that made her the money she needs to travel the globe on her kooky quests. The only thing this irritated fan can do at this point is warn some unsupecting person (you) looking to purchase this book. Don't waste your time or money on this one. If I could return it - I would.
Rating:
Summary: Disappointed!
Review: I have always been a fan of the Kay Scarpetta series and bought this book, expecting and hoping for a better read than the last few books Ms. Cornwell has written. I can only say I was really disappointed. I was expecting a Scarpetta mystery in line with the earlier ones and this one doesn't even come close. Written in the third-person, it seems impersonal and not even about the Scarpetta I used to love. Maybe it's me, but this book (along with some of her latest ones)reads like it wasn't even written by Patricia Cornwell. At least, not the author who gave us the earlier installments in this series. I'm beginning to wonder if she isn't following in the steps of James Patterson - simply placing her name on a mediocre book written by someone else.
Rating:
Summary: Buyer beware, this is NOT a welcome return to Scarpetta!
Review: WOW - I can't believe how poorly written this is. If Patricia Conrwell actually wrote it, she must have been terribly distracted. I'm thinking perhaps a ghost writer did it, someone with none of Cornwell's previously demonstrated skills. DON'T WASTE YOUR MONEY - get it out of the library if you must, but this is a book you'll want to throw away, not keep! Patricia, we miss you! Come back - with a REAL Kay Scarpetta novel (and never mind Isle of Dogs and all that other stuff.) Just because you may be bored with Kay, it doesn't mean we are!
Rating:
Summary: Time to kill Scarpetta off?
Review: The worst thing about this book is the gross error Cornwell has made with her main villain, the Wolfman. She is at great pains to point out that he has no eyes and is blind. She then has him looking out of his prison window at scenery, reading notes passed to him by other prisoners, and writing letters in perfectly scripted calligraphy. Without ruining the book, he performs an act at the end that could not be possibly have worked by a blind man acting alone. The aftermath of this event is even more unthinkable if the man cannot see where he is going. It is obvious that Cornwell has simply forgotten that her villain cannot see. There is an incredibly weak sub plot featuring Benton Wesley, which is both implausible and nonsensical. Pete Marino's only contribution to the book is to be fat and miserable. Cornwell's Scarpetta has now disappeared so far into fantasy land (parts of the plot are like something from a fairy story) that Cornwell has lost all credibility in my eyes. Methinks perhaps it's time Ms Scarpetta hung up her scalpel and bowed out before any more damage is done to what was once one of the best crime characters ever.
Rating: 
Summary: Well, I'm not saying I didn't enjoy it...
Review: It wasn't a bad book. I've so far enjoyed the tangent Cornwell has been on with the Chandonne cartel...mainly because I like the angst. But this novel was so lacking in structure that it was nearly painful. Benton's re-emergence seems contrived, and certainly doesn't ring true to Marino's actions in earlier books, particularly in "Black Notice." I won't knock the third-person narrative; it was an interesting experiment that I don't blame her for trying, and the present tense format was started in "The Last Precinct." But Cornwell may have been too ambitious in the amount of perspectives that she attempted to cover...the heart of the narrative was lost. If she had kept with the perspectives of the main characters whose acts and motivations her audience is already intimately familiar with--Kay, Lucy, Marino and Benton--this would have worked amazingly well. But the extension of the perspective onto unneeded new characters, ie the astonishingly irritating Nic Robillard, just bogged down the story. I'm not going to lie to myself-- I will read the next Scarpetta book, and any others she puts out, because I care about these characters, especially Marino. But I hope they get better again.
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