Blow Fly

Rating:
Summary: Welcome to the Robert Jordan School of Twaddle
Review: Sorry, amazon doesn't let me change the number of stars to one for some reason.

For those of you unfamiliar with the Robert Jordan slamfest, look at the hilarious reviews for Crossroads of Twilight. It seems that they're accepting new inductees into their circle of writers sworn to rambling on and on pointlessly, churning out page upon page of filler.

Starts out with interesting characters, but Cornwell overwrites this novel to exhaustion, adding too many "mood" pieces and too much detail for its own good. All the characters are way too conflicted, tormented by past, inner demons, etc. etc. and it gets wearisome to continue reading, unless you enjoy an oppressive atmosphere of depression.

If you do continue, you're 98% through the book and wondering how it'll all resolve. Well, it doesn't. Two of the main villains are dispatched in a sentence or less, one of them offscreen.

Contains the token rich-genius-tough-helicopter-flying female. Thankfully not too overdone.

JB Chandonne is a great baddie, it's just too bad he's in this book.

Rating:
Summary: From good to worse to Baton Rouge
Review: I adored "Body of Evidence" and "All That Remains". "Postmortem" and "Body Farm" were fantastic. I loved the rich, meticulously researched detail, the intelligent plot line, the extremely rich crafting of Scarpetta's world: from cooking and wine, through anatomy, pathology and medicine, this reads like a textbook- except it's pure fun and excitement. Then things slowly started deteriorating: plots got sloppy and overdrawn, factual information gave way to vague psychological ramblings. Scarpetta's universe became claustrophobic and unrealistic: every serial killer ends up on her door step (or, worse yet, between her sheets...).
Then "Blow Fly" completes the steady downslide of PC's writing. There is no suspence, no mystery, forget this - no fun in this read. I miss Kay's cooking! Vivid and clinical autopsy descriptions are replaced by sickening and really pointless details of Jay Talley's vaguely sexually motivated butcheries.
All characters act weirdo: Kay lives in Florida and buys Office Depot furniture, Marino seems to only make guest appearance to smoke and curse, and Lucy - cruel, cold blooded, vigilante-style killer??? Come on! And are we supposed to believe that Jay Talley, aka Jean Paul Chadonne, an heir to the powerful and rich international crime cartel is forced by the circumstances to spend years in a mosquito-infested fishing shack in Louisiana swamps???
And yes, it's official now: Kay Scarpetta is ageless! PC, meticulously careful to details writer, puts her age at "around forty" in the first of the series when Lucy is ten. Now Lucy is about 30 and Scarpetta is referred to as "forty six". Well, for one thing she spent 20+ years as Virginia's Chief Medical Examiner. Let's do quick math: pre-med: 2 years, medical school: 4, pathology residency and fellowship in forensic path:6, Georgetown law:3. Anybody's counting? That would be 15 years, let's say starting at age 18 after high school, that's 33 right there, add few years of work experience before being appointed a high-ranking state official... Well, yes, Scarpetta was "around forty" when we first met her but for the next quater of a century time stood still for her. Lucy's age progressed appropriately, Marino aged only somewhat (come on, he should be mid-seventies now...), and Benton (described several times as older than Kay) should actually share joys of senior living with Marino... But I guess, if you are beatiful, smart, and important, chronology takes a back seat.
One last thing: I happen to be a native of Poland. It is nothing like PC's description. Maybe in the fifties and sixties some of the realities described might have be true. These days, however: yes, people go on vacations, live comfortably and freely trade western currency. Russian Mafia and WWII military trucks are not a part of mainstream culture. Dear PC: make a note. If you want to competently write about Eastern Europe, things might have changed a little since Cold War era - check it out...

Rating:
Summary: I persevered, but....
Review: I can't believe I actually wasted several hours reading this book, nor that it was ever published in this state. It just doesn't make sense! I initially thought it was because it was so long since I read the last of the Scarpetta novels, and so had forgotten about the ruddy Chandonne family, Benton's death, etc, but by the end I realised that there were holes in the plot holes. Loose threads unravel throughout the novel, promising serial killer storylines just peter out, the characters that we know and love do completely random things, and the ending was just carnage. I actually came to read these reviews to see if it was just me being monumentally slow, but it looks like Cornwell's managed to baffle and bore most of us.

Rating:
Summary: Finally, Scarpetta's back
Review: I have read this series from the beginning and have been disappointed the past several years. But this book redeems those bad ones. Kay Scarpetta is back, stronger than ever. Although the reason for Benton Wesley's "fake murder" didn't ring real, I for one am glad for his return. Lucy is more likeable in this book - a real tough computer geek. And so is Scarpetta. She seems more like the Scarpetta of old. And of course Marino never changes, thank goodness. The story line was good, the characters great, and this was one good read.

Rating:
Summary: Who wrote this?
Review: Who wrote "Blow Fly?" Not Cornwell. She must have people writting for her and not paying any attention. I hate to think that she would have made such tremendous errors. Wish I had time to reread it and make notes, but the glaring ones are 1)they have a blind man driving 2)Why does Marino drive to New Orleans in his shape instead of flying? 3) They hear about the missing woman on the radio but none of them hear about the prison escape!

Rating:
Summary: Enjoyable - though not as good as usual
Review: In this Scarpetta installment we continue to experience Kay's mental unraveling after all that has happened since Benton's death and the attack on her by the wolf man. This episode, however, is not nearly as faced paced or intriguing as most of Cornwell's work.

This novel almost seems as though it is meant to be more of an inside glimpse into the heart of the characters as opposed to simply being another spine tingling thriller. On the face of things, this book is disappointing, but I think that it might wind up being a piece of the Scarpetta series that is important in understanding the characters and why they do what they do. I hope that I am correctly guessing at the redeeming qualities, because otherwise we are left with only an unbelievable plot and a rushed and disappointing ending.

This also seems to be the novel that will transition the series away from Richmond and the ME's office. Hopefully, this is just the beginning of a new direction for Scarpetta and not her undoing. I recommend this book, but not for new Cornwell readers. As always, it is crucial to start at the beginning.

Rating:
Summary: Better than Trace
Review: I don't know why people write these boorriiinngg synopsis of books, do you really want to know the WHOLE story before you read the book. Some of these reviews give up the entire book; some are as long as the book itself. Anyway, this is an average Scarpetta book, it's taunt and I liked the Louisiana locations. This is a better book than Cornwell's current book Trace. If you have not read Cornwell's Scarpetta books before, I urge you to start at the beginning, they are the better books, plus the series builds on itself.

Rating:
Summary: Not one of her best
Review: I've always enjoyed the Scarpetta books but this one was definitely not one of the best. The plot was somewhat predictable. Benton's being alive was actually not surprising, or even interesting.

Patricia Cornwell has become a victim of her own success and has lost her originality as she churns out boiler-plate stories.

Rating:
Summary: Cringeworthy
Review: The preceeding reviews did a thorough job covering the plethora of issues with this novel, so I won't belabor the specifics already noted. Speaking as a long-time reader of the Scarpetta novels, this was a huge disappointment. Speaking as a writer, this book was embarrassing. I must disagree with the posting that claimed to feel the presence of a heavy-handed editor; I frequently threw down the book to irritate my husband with rants that started with "where was the editor?!"

The characters were out of character. The plot was implausible at best, incomprehensible at worst. I swear some of the content was lifted directly from the "don't" section of a style manual. ("He sat in a chair that was padded." Not just badly written - this one wasn't even relevant to the scene.)

For readers that turn to Cornwell and Scarpetta for a pleasantly reliable reading experience (I say "reliable" because it's more polite that formulaic), this one does not deliver.

Bottom line for the story: Readers love Scarpetta for a reason, and you can't take the medical examiner out of the morgue.

Bottom line overall: It read like the first draft of what could have been a good book.


Rating:
Summary: A Man on Death Row in Texas Summons Dr. K. Scarpetta -
Review: This novel has enough intrigue and mystery to hold the interest of any avid reader who enjoys a good chase for clues, a lot of investigative work that takes a person to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Boston, Mass, and Szczecin, Poland, with hints of romance that *could* rekindle from the past, and getting to know the inner workings of a weird twisted mind, the mind of a mass murderer. I have never read a Dr. Kay Scarpetta novel before, therefore I came with an open mind. I really liked this book. It had me reading from cover to cover at one sitting. I was unable to put it down. I expected a lot more gore and description of crime scenes. I was grateful this was done minimally, just enough to let you know it was a 'murder mystery' book. The plot thickens as Dr. Kay Scarpetta's neice, Lucy Farinelli and her partner, Zach, visit a crooked lawyer in Poland who is related to the murder case in Louisiana. They change the dynamics of the investigation through a well planned event they engineered ... except they failed to consider certain tell-tale clues, which could come back to haunt them. I love the way the author writes in a nonlinear fashion, mixing places and events from chapter to chapter, so that you *want* to keep reading ... to discover who the characters are and how they interact to reveal the mysteries woven into the story. This novel is really a work of art ... I recommend it whole heartedly. Erika Borsos (erikab93)