Rating: 
Summary: Unusual and Disconcerting
Review: First, let me say that I consider Kay Scarpetta practically a three dimensional person. I am a Cornwell advocate! However, in the interests of honesty, I must confess that I have found this book both challenging and inconsistent. For the die-hard Cornwell fan, back up and prepare yourself!For the Unitiated Cornwell, PLEASE don't read this book first. In this book, Scarpetta relinquishes the first-person voice, so we see her traipse through baggage relating to the serial killer Jean-Baptiste Chandonne (I couldn't resist spelling that name out) and his evil brother Jay Talley (aka Jean-Paul). The third-person omnisicient shifts without warning among a variety of characters, including the bad guys and some not-wholly-unanticipated surprise characters. While necessary for plot development, this strategy might render some die-hard Scarpetta allies confused and uncomfortable. We are used to Kay, her ruminations and rationalizations... without them, this book doesn't seem quite a companion of the series. Giving Cornwell the benefit of the doubt, how else can we the reader know what Jay Talley is up to? Where he is? How else can we understand the twisted motivations that fuel his freakish brother, imprisoned on death row? There are numerous and incredibly complicated forces at work in this novel... so change is required... but the changes, somehow, fail to connect Scarpetta to her reader. In a way, it's not a book about Scarpetta so much as the circumstances at which she finds her personal and professional life at this point. Essentially, I find this book fuzzy in its logic and somewhat confusing. I don't understand how some parts of the plot fit together, and I HAVE read all of the other books -- I cannot imagine the confusion of a newcomer to this series! It's like Cornwell has fallen into the trap of melodrama... the engaging clarity and focus of Postmortem (the series springboard) has become mired in innumerable complexities, and the essential simplicity of storytelling is lost... though I dare not fear it's lost forever. I can't give away the novel's Big Surprise (although I see that many other reviewers have), but once you read the book for yourself, consider that this Big Surprise is a huge letdown. I cannot imagine that Cornwell planned ahead to blindside her audience as she did with this Big Surprise. How incredibly unfair is that, when a running theme throught the series is accepting inevitability? Dealing with loss? Anyone who read the prequel The Last Precinct will remember with poignant clarity Kay's confidences with her trusted friend and colleague Anna, confidences which did more to paint Scarpetta in human form than any of the predessor stories alone or combined... and it was all for naught? Somehow, I find this novel less believable or engaging than other Cornwell books. This admission pains me; I am one of the few fans of Scarpetta's series with Jim Brazil and Judy Hammer. In those books, at least I thought I understood her purpose and goals for writing. Alas, in this one, I felt no such comfort. With all of this being said, for the true Cornwell fan, Blow Fly is a must read.
Rating: 
Summary: Hard To Finish
Review: I thought maybe it was just me, maybe I didn't understand the book. As I read the other reviews here I can tell you- It's not JUST ME. This book was hard to finish, it wasn't as good as any of the other Kay Scarpetta novels. I am a die hard Cornwell fan, and have been waiting years along with the rest of you to get my hands on a new Scarpetta book. But what has Scarpetta come to? Everyone in this book is angry and depressed. Lucy is a killer, Marino leaves his home dejected and depressed, and Benton is back? How could Lucy and Marino hide this fact for so long? There are characters that just show up, like Rudy. What happened to Teun? And the ending, oh boy. After reading the whole book.. I won't give it away..but to have it wrapped up so quickly and easily didn't statisfy me. Hopefully the next Scarpetta book will be better!
Rating: 
Summary: Sad day for Scarpetta
Review: Having loved all of the other Scarpetta books, I read Blow Fly with a sense of anticipation. Unfortunately, this wasn't met at all. The book lacks the mystery of the preceeding volumes. All of the characters seemed manipulated towards the ending, which wasn't nearly so obvious in the other books. I was disappointed with the third person perspective, although I understand while it was used. However, Cornwell calling Kay "Scarpetta" throughout the book seemed to distance her from the character. If she was calling the main character of her story by last name, she should have kept it consistent throughout. Overall, the story seemed tired and not very imaginative. Hopefully the sequel (whenever it comes out) will be better than this uninspired novel.
Rating:
Summary: hugely predictable and intensely disappointing!
Review: As a long-time Cornwell and Kay Scarpetta fan I am shocked to see the series drop to this very sad level of quality. After a disappointing "Black Notice" when the questionable wolfman Chandonne was introduced, Cornwell raised herself almost to her old level of writing in "The Last Precinct", but now she seems to completely have hit rock bottom. The story is predictable from page 1 and I had to gasp when I saw that she indeed resurrected Benton Wesley! How unbelievable yet cheesily predictable is that? And Lucy and Marino knew all along he was still alive? I don't think so! It seems to be more like: we have run out personal storyline for Kay after her last lover turned out to be serial killer, so let's resurrect the lost love of her life! None of the characters, including Kay in this book, come across as remotely sympathetic or believable: Lucy is more neurotic than ever, and after being wunderkind computer whiz, turned problematic law enforceress, turned alcoholic, turned highly problematic self-employed private investigator, she is now going around executing people herself. On the note of Lucy's European execution adventure: the European portions of this novel are extremely poorly written and make you wonder if Ms. Cornwell has ever visited Germany or Poland. At least one would assume that a writer of her notoriety can afford a foreign language editor and not let a book go to print with emberrassingly poor and wrong German phrases (I am a native German, trust me: it's bad). Marino and Wesley in this book have nothing in common with the carefully crafted, believable characters that they were in earlier novels, Marino is just alltogether pityful and disgusting, and Wesley is totally weird. Sadly they drive this book more than the Scarpetta character who in the first half of the book seems a mere cameo appearance. The book dwells so much on the past and innuendo from previous stories that the present storyline never develops any of the strenght, pace, or complicated density that were the hallmarks of the earlier Scarpetta books. The book is made up of over 100 miniature chapters, some of them barely 3 pages long, and in parts the dialogue and storyline are so poorly coherent and sketchy that you have to go back and re-read portions to stay with the action. Overall a very sad and poor effort!
Rating:
Summary: Looking Backward, Going Nowhere Fast
Review: I, too became tired of Cornwell after The Last Precinct and then was completely captivated by the Jack the Ripper story. That she could make that tale so compelling, renewed my respect for Cornwell's writing. But, Blow Fly is even more tiresome than the Last Precinct. Not only do we spend two-thirds of the book reintroducing characters from the past--but we bring back the dead. I was hoping for something fresh and compelling, but I got something warmed over one too many times.
Rating:
Summary: Couldn't even finish
Review: I was sorely disappointed. This was the first Scarpette book that I hadn't purchased sight unseen, due to my dislike of The Last Precinct. I checked this out of the library and I'm glad I didn't waste my money. The story is disjointed, jumping from place-to-place, one dislikable character to the next. I found myself reading and rereading pages of dialogue to try and understand what they were so angry or upset about. Marino is a patheticself-pitying whiner, Lucy is neurotic, and Wesley and Chandonne are just bizarre. Scarpetta, in spite of then book being "A Scarpetta Novel", is barely in the first 200 pages. I read about 300 pages and then decided I wasn't enjoying myself and wasting my time. This is the first book I've put down unfinished in years.
Rating:
Summary: Not Again!
Review: After the last two Scarpetta disasters, I swore off Cornwell. But got suckered back in by the promise of the "old Kay." Well, I got the "old Kay" but from the last two disasters. Tortured, lugubrious characters; improbable, conspiracy-theory plots; and worst of all - written in present tense! How pretentious and very distracting to read. Like it or not, Ms. Cornwell, the prime consideration for a writer is the audience. I suggest you stick with a diary if you feel so compelled to put forth your own agenda at the expense of the reader.
Rating:
Summary: Nothing Happens
Review: The last three Scarpetta novels revolve around the same characters. Black Notice was great. Suspenseful and full of action. The Last Precinct slowly started to take us downhill. We listened to Kay talk out her emotions with her "therapist" friend and watched Marino's health decline. We see Kay accused of murder and many other things. You think you will see something come of this in Blow Fly. No. Nothing happens. We don't really hear about a trial or investigation against Kay. In fact, she and Lucy are friends with Jamie. It is difficult to get into the characters because of the 3rd person narration. I was unable to care about any of the characters because of the lack of depth to them. I was bored with chapter after chapter of Channdone. Who cares? He is in prison thinking about Kay. We get it. We don't need 10 chapters about it. I zoomed through this book, often times skimming the chapters about Channdone because of the repetition, and wondered how in the world it would end with only 3 chapters left. It ended the same as The Last Precinct...with nothing resolved! You are left waiting for the next one.
Rating: 
Summary: Amazing, a worthy successor to the Last Precinct
Review: I'm getting annoyed with the bad reviews thrown at Blow Fly. Patricia Cornwell has written another winner, and because most people have limited capabilities when it comes to enjoyable reading, they seem to think that anything that differs from a set pattern is "bad" writing. Blow Fly was written in third person because it was necessary to the flow of the novel. How could all of these loose ends be tied if the entire novel were in Kay's point of view? Also, to a reviewer who stated that Chandonne was conveniently blind some instances, but able to see later, there is a simple solution for this: He is a psychopath! If you take the time to read The Last Precinct, you'll note that Chandonne was not blinded permanently, but had noticeable trouble seeing. There's a difference. He no doubt uses his blindness as a ruse to manipulate. He's locked up and the key has been thrown away. How else is he going to get his rocks off? It's classic psychopathic personality, and Patricia Cornwell captures this better than any other author out there. Blow Fly is one gripping story with amazing twists and turns throughout its 400 plus pages. The ending is heartbreaking and poignant, the crime scenes atmospheric, and the dialogue crisper than ever. What a ride! I can't wait for the next Scarpetta!
Rating:
Summary: Is Cornwell Intentionally Alienating Her Fans?
Review: Patricia Cornwell has apparenty become too successful to put much effort into her books anymore. The characters are so inconsistently written from one chapter to the next (especially Lucy and Marino) that its hard to believe the same person wrote every chapter. Marino was a promising character throughout the Scarpetta series, although Cornwell never quite got his tone right. In this book,he is reduced to a pathetic, imbecilic loser, and thoroughly unlikeable. Lucy has become totally unbelievable, as has another character that has morphed into a "supercop" more appropriate to a James Bond story than a Kay Scarpetta mystery. And Kay herself has been marginalized. The story plods along, dull and grim, until suddenly ending in a couple of dozen pages, as if even Cornwell cannot take this story anymore and is desperate to see it done with.
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