Rating: 
Summary: Really Bad!
Review: A terrible read. A computer determined who the killer was, from out of the blue, with no explanation to the reader. Likewise I was waiting for a tie-in between the supernatural portion of the story which appeared at the beginning of the book but there was no relationship between the ghost of the woman Samantha Barrister, her family, and the rest of the story. Very juvenile, not at all thought out in a logical manner. It was a page turner, keeping me in suspense as I waited for some coherence, which, unfortunately, never came.
Rating:
Summary: Truly Awful-don't blow your money buying it.
Review: As a long time reader of Coulter's books, I expected a lot more than what this book delivered. First off, the dialogue was really strange--almost like Coulter herself didn't write it. In her past books she has been pretty good at characterization, but in this book, the characters were stilted, wooden and totally unbelievable as was the plot and the twists. The ending of the story line made absolutely no sense to the rest of the book. The characters--Ben and Callie had so little chemistry between them that it was almost painful when they finally hooked up! My advice to anyone contemplating a purchase of Blow Out - is don't blow your money on buying the book--look at how uniformly bad these reviews are and then either skip reading it all together, or go to the library and check it out! This is not a book you will want to keep in your personal library. It is really , really bad!
Rating: 
Summary: A Fast-Moving but Logical Mystery
Review: FBI agent Dillon Savich is driving down an isolated stretch of road on the way to meet his wife, Lacey Sherlock, and their son, Sean, for a much-needed vacation. Suddenly, a woman jumps into his car's path and causes a near accident. He chases her to a large estate home. She is obsessed with a man inside who is trying to kill her. When Savich tries to help her, she flees in terror. Savich's call for help with the local Sheriff gets sympathy but no definitive action. According to Sheriff Doozer Harms, the Barrister house on Clayton Road has been abandoned and vacant. The young woman Savich described with excellent detail was Samantha Barrister, murdered thirty years earlier.The following morning, his getaway grinds to a halt when a phone call summons both him and his agent wife back to Washington, D.C. Supreme Court Justice Stewart Califano is dead, murdered in the Supreme Court Library. The Saviches are in charge of the federal investigation and will work with local detective Ben Raven. Califano's death is brutal; he was garroted by a thin wire. The murderer is a professional. To complicate matters, Justice Califano's stepdaughter, Callie Markham, is a crack journalist on the Washington newspaper's staff. Raven accepts her help with family information when she becomes a willing sidekick after taking a leave of absence from her job. Eight previous well-received FBI thrillers give author Catherine Coulter credibility in BLOWOUT, a fast-moving but logical mystery. The right amount of leakage makes the reader lean one way toward the crime's solution, then veer in another when clues lead in a different direction. Savich's encounter with the "dead woman" on the moonlit road in rural Pennsylvania is a nagging unfinished piece to a complicated puzzle. The murdered Justice leaves a trail of questionable companions, his three legal assistants at the top of the list. When two of them come up dead, the FBI struggles to keep the third, Elaine LaFleurette, alive. Meanwhile, clues lead to the murderer, a contract killer who has been silent for more than a decade. Savich stays a step ahead of Gunter Grass, the suspected killer, when he hides LaFleurette in his home. But rapid-fire events compromise their safety. The Justice's widow has a close-knit circle of four long-time friends: Janette Weaverton, Anna Clifford, Juliette Trevor and Bitsy St. Pierre. During the course of the investigation, the four are a formidable group, protecting Margaret Califano from intrusions into her past and present personal life. Their smothering protectorate stifles the agents' forward progress. Markham finds her loyalty to her stepfather's reputation and her love for his memory at odds when confronted by the realities in the case. And she has become more than a sidekick to Ben Raven when their friendship takes a personal turn. Loose ends keep both cases in turmoil until the final interviews conclude. The results are acceptable but not necessarily neat. Coulter writes with vigor, yet is sympathetic to her characters' feelings. For her empathy, she can be allowed to exit with cases solved but not totally resolved. She is a prolific writer, and BLOWOUT leaves a thirst for the next Savich and Sherlock story to unfold from her computer. --- Reviewed by Judy Gigstad
Rating:
Summary: Not one of her better books
Review: I have read all of Catherine's FBI thrillers and have to say this is not one of her better writings. She entwines two tales in one story that have nothing remotely to do with each other and it just kind of leaves you mixed up. Wondering when she was going to touch on the other story she was trying to tell. It seemed to drag on and on...and that is one quality in book that I do not enjoy. However I will not stop reading her books. Every other FBI thriller book she has written has been excellent. Every now and then an author has an off time. This was just one of hers. I am sure she will come back strong and kicking.
Rating:
Summary: STOP THE PRESSES!
Review: I have read all of Coulter's books, some more than once. Her Regency-era romances were usually witty and fun and her early FBI thrillers were actually good. This one is just bad. It had good primeses but bad characterization, bad dialogue, no plot, stupid cops and a spectacularly bad ending. She should never have let this one go to print.
By the way, I checked the other reviews written by the three people who have given this book a five-star rating. Who's paying these people? Two of the three have written dozens of reviews, giving nearly every book a five. Either they have no taste or they are shills.
Rating:
Summary: A Great Disappointment
Review: I have read many of Catherine Couleter's FBI books and enjoyed them thoroughly along with the characters of Savich and Sherlock. But this book had a silly unrealistic plot. The main premise what that a Supreme Court Justice could be murdered by someone clubbing a Federal Guard, changing clothes with him, and gee, going back into the building to commit the murder. I guess the building was just open to anyone. The characters were one dementional and even in very stressful times the dialogue was "very cute" and supposedly witty. The final resolution was as unrealistic as the plot and character development. Honestly, I would have to say that this book was written by someone else who just took the name of Catherine Coulter. I regret the money I paid for the book and it was so poorly written than anything in excess of five minutes a page would have been too much. Instead of finding an old friend who gave me a few hours of wonderful reading, I found an imposter. I don't believe the Catherine Coulter I have read previously would have even sent this out as a first draft for review.
Rating: 
Summary: Ending Disappointed
Review: I love the Sherlock/Savich series, but I had problems with this one. First of all, I felt that a psychic experience was out of place. Sherlock and Savich are professionals; the ghost story line didn't fit in. Secondly, there were a lot of contradictions in the book. For example, I didn't buy that the judge married Callie's mother to get to her. It didn't jive. Callie respected the judge and was intuitive enough to know if he was interested in her or not. There was no evidence that he was. I, especially, disliked the way things were tied up at the end. The last quarter of the book didn't fit with the first three. So many of my favorite authors are cranking books out due to publisher induced deadlines. They suffer as a result.
Rating:
Summary: Blow Out: Another thriller
Review: I read other reviews on this site and got disappointed since I'm a fan. Ignore the reviews . . . I have read each one of Coulter's FBI thrillers, and BLOW OUT didn't disappoint. There are other books that are better, but I don't know why the angry reviews some posted. I really enjoyed the Callie Ben relationship and thought Mrs. Califano's friends were like the ya-ya sisterhood. The story lines were as clever and tricky as usual. I'm waiting for the next one!
Rating:
Summary: Oh, ye Gads!
Review: I shudder when I think of why this alleged "author" even wrote this pile of C***.
What a premise! Murder at the Supreme Court; one Justice killed, his legal clerks are getting bumped off.... ahhhh! how a real who-dunit writer could have developed such a great idea.
But what we have here is saccharine-sweet garbage, badly edited at that. No idea about police work, FBI agents crying like babies, and a ridiculouds construct as an end...
Don't even read it from the public library; it ain't worth it.
I had to give it one star because Amazon would not have accepted it otherwise; also, because Coulter abstained from graphic descriptions of sex, as it seems to be mandated now for woman writers.
Otherwise....Gahhhh!
Rating: 
Summary: did she get paid by the word?
Review: i've never read a book with such banal chit-chat--the dialogue was just plain bad! if she'd have cut out about 200 pages of dialogue maybe i'd have muddled through it. as it was, i disn't care who killed who.
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