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: 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: 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: Waste of Time
Review: I have been a fan of Patricia Corwell and the super Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Kay, for years; however, I found this book to be a real disappointment. Based on this performance it is clear that Ms. Corwell has run out of plot lines and should retire Dr. Kay to the annals of literature. Blow Fly skips between characters at a frenetic pace and within its pages Ms. Cornwell has succeeded in nothing more than continuing to portray the characters in her books as superheroes rather than normal people that readers can identify with.
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: 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: 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: Not worth reading
Review: SPOILERS AHEADI 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: 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: Not a great novel
Review: This book is certainly not what one has come to expect from Ms. Cornwell. The earlier Scarpetta novels were more about how Kay meticulously examined evidence to solve whatever crime the plot was about (much like CSI on TV). This style of storytelling is what attracted most readers to this series of books, myself included. In the last few books it seems Ms. Cornewll has gotten away from this and is concentrating more on the personal lives of the characters, the crime(s) being almost secondary to the plot. The result is that the later books are much less interesting. This one isn't actively bad, it's just not the gripping page-turner that previous entries have been.
Add to this the fact that this is written, not in first-person past-tense, but in third-person present-tense and it really feels disconnected from the earlier books in the series. It is as though, by relating the events in third-person rather than having Kay narrate them, the author is underscoring Kay's withdrawal from everything connected to her old life.
To sum up, this is not the worst novel I have ever read (that dubious honor goes to "A Confederacy of Dunces"), but I'm glad I checked this out from the library, rather than actually buying it. I suggest anyone else wanting to read it do the same.
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