Rating: 
Summary: Far from her best effort
Review: The last Scarpetta installment is a weird one. Use of third person in discribing events gets old too quickly and really does not do much for the plot.
Speaking of the plot, the reintroduction of Benton was so flat and lifeless that you'd think he just came back from the short holiday! Also, the ending is pretty lame.
Having said that, Patricia Cornwell is still one of the masters and I sincerely do hope that, after the awkwardness of trying to tie up so many lose ends in a jiffy, the next Scarpetta novel is on the level we all come to expect.
Rating: 
Summary: You disappoint me, Ms. Cornwell
Review: After having read all of Ms. Cornwell's books, buying the newest "Scarpetta"-novel was an absolute must. In the past I have immensely enjoyed her books, which were well written, had a taut storyline, and superb characterisation, paired with astute medical knowledge, all carefully researched. Finishing her newest book was, to say the least, an ordeal, and never have I come closer to throwing a book into the trash than with this sorry work of fiction. But where to begin with my criticism?In this book, it seems that Ms. Cornwell attempted a literary version of a "split screen" film as seen in the well known "24 Hrs." series. The third person narrative is akin to a video camera following the various characters in "real time", unfortunately Ms. Cornwell fails miserably in the depiction of character and emotionality, but rather turns the previously believable characters into card-board cut-outs of their former selves.
The plot goes from unbelievable to worse (and I have enjoyed some of Ms. Cornwell's previous "save the universe in one day" plots), suddenly W. Benton turns up out of nowhere, our favourite baddy, J.P. Chandonne, just walks out of Jail, and the culmination of the story lacks ALL of the tense excitement we have known in previous books, and is easily summarized with "Benton pulls out his gun and shoots Baddy #1 dead, Ruby pulls out his gun and shoots Baddy #2 dead". In fact Ms. Cornwell needs only a few sentences more to depict what I have just summarized.
The ethics involved in the story are questionable in the very least - entering a foreign country subversively, and executing a criminal, however evil he may be, is called murder in most law systems of this world, and terrorism in some.
And finally, the language: That Ms. Cornwell has superb command of the english language is undisputable, unfortunately, her power of language in this book gives rise to empty sentence bubbles - pretty to look at, but very often with no informational or emotional content, in fact there are whole chapters that serve no literary purpose at all (without taking into account all the various "techno-geek" explorations of modern technology). In short, never has a book written by Ms. Cornwell so thouroughly disappointed me, and made me so cross for having had an obvious "money-maker" foisted on me.
Rating: 
Summary: Cornwell is not at her best
Review: I'd been looking so forward to this book. But when I got to the end of the novel, I wondered where the rest of the chapters were. I felt that as a reader, I was shorted. True, there were some great aspects of the book, in particular, bringing together older characters and introdcuing some new ones. But for the most part, the book left me hanging. Some pretty big events happen at the end of the book, but there were few explanations and no closure at all.
Rating: 
Summary: One of her best
Review: I had trouble reading in the third person. I believe that Patricia Cornwell had to get out of Kay's head and look objectively at what has happened to her.
I hope that the next book will be back inside Kay's head. I really enjoyed the book. I felt that loose ends had been tied up. I was disappointed in the J.B. character. I expected more from the tough New York prosecutor.
Rating:
Summary: What happened to Cornwell?
Review: I've been hooked on Cornwell's Scarpetta series since the first and have eagerly anticipated this latest. This book was a complete disappointment. The plot was excellent, I'd give it 5 stars for that, but her writing style has completely changed. Blow Fly is written in a very impersonal, formal, third person style that is not consistent with the rest of the Scarpetta novels. This left me cold. One of the draws of the rest of the series is the feeling of being able to be "inside Scarpetta's head" and follow the story from her point of view. There is none of that with this book. If there are any others in the future, I hope Cornwell goes back to her old style of writing. This was about as terrible as Hornet's Nest and Southern Cross.
Rating: 
Summary: Ms. Cornwell is at the top of her game with her latest novel
Review: Six years ago Benton Wesley was tortured and murdered. Since then life has become exceedingly difficult for Kay Scarpetta. Serial Killer Jean Baptiste Chardonne, the unwanted son of a crime cartel family, tried to make Kay one of his victims. When he was caught, he tried to turn the situation around and Kay was forced to go before a grand jury to defend her reputation and honor. Her one time lover Jay Talley, Jean-Baptist's fraternal twin, used her to find out if Benton told her anything about the Chardonne crime cartel. Unable to live in her precious Virginia home, Kay moved to Del Rey Beach, Florida working as a free lance consultant. Talley and his lover are fugitives living in the bayou near Baton Rouge where ten women in fourteen months have disappeared. Jean-Baptiste is days away from state execution and wants to see Scarpetta. Marino's son is a lawyer for the Chardonne family and is a threat to all of Kay's friends. All those people are being played by one of the world's most intelligent puppet masters. BLOW FLY brings the various players from the last three books together allowing the audience to see what is happening to each of them. Patricia Cornwell has written a brilliant crime thriller starring a vulnerable Scarpetta, a person who has endured heartache, legal troubles, a violent attack and near death by a violent sociopath. She is nowhere near healed and when she discovers the secret those closest to her have been keeping, she will feel betrayed and anger. Ms. Cornwell is at the top of her game with her latest novel. It keeps readers on the edge of their seats absorbing one shock after another. Harriet Klausner
Rating:
Summary: Amazing!
Review: The newest entry in the Scarpetta saga will leave you breathless. Crisp writing, tons of twists and turns, and a plot saturated with mystery and the investigation that follows. Patricia Cornwell has done it again!
Rating:
Summary: Not worth reading
Review: SPOILERS AHEAD I normally enjoy Cornwell's novels as light relief on a plane, but this one was seriously disappointing. There's only one crime scene investigation, towards the end, of a largely irrelevant murder, and the rest of the book seems to be made up of the guilt and neuroses of the central characters as they all move away from the professional orbits that (once) made them so interesting. The Wolfman (yawn!) and his twin brother Jay are trotted out YET AGAIN as the bad boys of the piece, only to be despatched 'offscreen' at the end. I agree with other readers that the ending was sudden and flat - I convinced myself that I had missed a chapter and resorted to shaking the novel to see if the extra pages would suddenly materialise, explaining what went down at the shack and how Benton killed Jay and what happened to the Wolfman. No such luck. This didn't seem like a cliffhanger, more like a "I can't be bothered" from the author. I shall seriously debate buying any future Cornwell books - "Jack The Ripper" was a shoddy piece of scholarship, and this was lazily written throughout, lacking the taut plot and original characterisation that made the others in the series so enjoyable. A real shame.
Rating:
Summary: Ugh!
Review: Early Scarpetta novels were gruesome yet literary. Kay was likeable, human. In this latest novel, Cornwell seems absolutely obsessed with torture and sex, preferably together. I couldn't finish this and I usually have a pretty strong stomach.
Rating:
Summary: Not half bad
Review: I had a difficult time figuring out if I liked this novel or not. On one hand, I felt that many events were just excuses for not having enough to write about (like Benton being alive afterall). I also was getting tired of the Wolfman storyline and all the characters involved. But I really feel that Blow Fly is one of the better written novels, mostly because of the third person style. I liked knowing about other people's feelings, along with Kay's. Like everyone else, I didn't like the ending, but I am looking forward to her next novel (that I read somewhere is coming out in September!). It is a good in between novel that is going to lead to something great! I'm usually not disappointed with Cornwell's work!
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