Rating: 
Summary: Better than some, but still lacking
Review: Honestly, I debated whether to give this 3 stars or 4... but I felt that overall this book has been under-rated by other reviewers, so I erred higher.This isn't, by any means, Cornwell (or Scarpetta) at her best. However, it's leaps and bounds better than the last Scarpetta book. I was horrified to realize that the Wolfman was returning in this one - to me, his story is what has brought this series down - but this was at least a little more like the pre-Wolf books. I'm just hoping (though I'm not holding my breath) that we've seen the end of the Chandonne cartel storyline for good. The thing about Lucy flirting with her male partner really galled me, though, especially coming from a lesbian author! The pacing was odd, and the wrap-up was fast, but the ride was fun anyhow along the way. Overall, I enjoyed this book more than I expected to. It gave me hope that Scarpetta and her crew CAN come back into their old glory.
Rating: 
Summary: Embarrassingly bad
Review: Patricia Cornwell's descent as a writer is gaining speed. Early on in this dreadful and overlong book, it is clear that Cornwell has forgotten why we liked Kay Scarpetta. Scarpetta once rang true as a sophisticated middle-aged woman who was juggling a serious and demanding career with a difficult but grown-up relationship. But in Blowfly, Cornwell portrays Scarpetta as a burned-out wreck, completely traumatized by the death of her former lover Wesley Benton. And just as Scarpetta is on a downhill slide, so is her friend Pete Marino and her niece Lucy. Even the handsome serial killer Jay, clever enough to have become an ATF agent, is now a pot-bellied and bloated, beer-guzzling goober who uses human body parts to trap alligators in a swamp outside Baton Rouge. In a complete misreading of her hard-headed and pragmatic audience, Cornwell even resurrects Wesley Benton. Ooops -- he wasn't killed. It was all part of a nonsensical plot to deceive the evil Chardonne family. Huh? And even the urbane Mr. Benton is now a burned-out and bearded shadow of his former self. Instead of giving us characters to care about and cutting-edge forensic science, Cornwell now has Scarpetta tell us what to take for a cold. The ending? There isn't one. She merely kills off a few people, forgets about others and makes it clear that the repulsive Wolfman will live another day to blight another book. There is no one in this awful mess of a book worth the ink and the paper. Cornwell should have gracefully retired three or four books ago when her reputation was still somewhat intact, so that loyal fans would not continue to waste money hoping beyond hope that she has re-gained her touch.
Rating: 
Summary: I couldn't put it down, at first.........
Review: I agree with those who reviewed this and asked, "what happened to the ending?" I too was disappointed and toward the end, was thinking, how could there possibly be only a few pages left when the story just got really good? So I give it 2 stars because it started out really good, but it ended abruptly. I also agree with others who state that Scarpetta is a dark depressing figure, Marino is a pathetic overweight person and Lucy, in this one, she comes on to her partner who is a male, so this just adds some confusion and hypocrcy. Overall though, I have thoroughly enjoyed Patricia Cornwell novels, but I am left confused and thinking I need to reread to figure out how we got from point a to point b....
Rating:
Summary: The Death of Dr. Scarpetta
Review: What a disappointment! Instead of the hard hitting novels with
interesting and factual forensic science,as in the past, we get a
serial novel. The first quarter of the book was nothing but
rehash of past Scarpetta novels. The forensic is limited to a
few pages at the end of the novels. It seems Ms. Cornwall is only
interested in keeping her characters going without any of the
enthusiasm or originality of prior novels. She has gone
the way of Anne Rice and will be gone from any best seller list
after this one.
Rating:
Summary: Nuttiest of the series
Review: Yes, one needs to suspend disbelief when reading novels. But the last 3 or 4 Scarpetta books defy credulity. Cornwell has become so obsessed with Wolfman -- who is a real bore as a character -- that she is now even resurrecting dead people to deal with him. This book was a terrible waste of my reading time and the last Scarpetta novel I will read unless the REAL Scarpetta comes back. That's the intelligent, feisty character who began this series of books. (I won't even bother to mention the disappointment of a near-400 page book wrapping up all its plot details in its last 30 pages -- what a ripoff!)
Rating:
Summary: Badly written and formulaic
Review: What a disappointment! This book read like a hodge-podge of ideas and loose threads that Cornwell had floating around in her head for the past several years. The book goes in so many directions that it can't sustain the plot at all. Readers who've grown to love Scarpetta's detective work will be SORELY disappointed. She spends maybe 5 pages of the entire novel conducting a forensic investigation. I also detected the heavy-handed work of an editor who completely butchered the last 40 pages or so in order to wrap things up quickly. Horrible ending! I just hope that she's gotten the Chandonne family storyline out of her system. It stopped being interesting a long time ago. It would be wonderful to see Scarpetta take on a totally FRESH case next time, one that has nothing whatsoever to do with wolf boy.
Rating:
Summary: Cornwell is trying to be what she's not.
Review: Cornwell is excellent when she writes about the technical, forensic aspects of Kay Scarpetta's work. Cornwell is really, really bad when she tries to write dialogue or flesh out her characters. So why doesn't she focus on the former, and give up on the latter? Is she trying to be more "literary"? If so, it's a sadly misdirected effort. Is it just me, or, with the exception of Marino, is being overweight used as a device to signal "this person is bad/evil/boring/worthless," etc? And if I have to read one more time just how fabulously gorgeous and unforgettable Lucy is, I swear I'll retch. The funniest thing I read in this novel was when a student described Kay Scarpetta as having a good sense of humor. Oh my. Scarpetta has no sense of humor, not even a twinkling of it. But I guess Cornwell feels that it's not enough that she be brilliant, wealthy, always right, and a blond babe. Nope, now she wants us to believe that she's funny too. Cornwell's world is filled with angry, dour, suspicious people; the story lines at times may fascinate, but asking us to like the characters now is too much, Patricia.
Rating: 
Summary: Wonderful!!!!
Review: I loved this book. I had read all of the reviews and thought I wouldn't like it but I loved it. I liked the fact that she brought back her person from the dead. She explained it well and fit it into the plot. I can't wait for the next book!!!!!
Rating:
Summary: A Highly Suspenseful Read
Review: Patricia Cornwell's newest novel, BLOW FLY, is the stuff nightmares are made of. Her famous forensic pathologist Kay Scarpetta is back, along with her niece Lucy and Detective Pete Marino. They make their way through this highly suspenseful, brutally realistic novel of perverted lust and maniacal murder perpetrated by two old foes responsible for an incalculable number of killings. Scarpetta has resigned from her post as Chief Forensic Pathologist in Virginia and now lives in Florida. Lucy has left the FBI and has her own high-tech private investigative company located in New York City. Pete Marino has taken his pension and is an angry drunk without the job he so loved. As the novel opens, the three have been out of touch for a while, but this soon changes as a series of shocking events forces the team to reunite. Their lives depend on it. Readers of the other Kay Scarpetta novels will certainly recognize Cornwell's deft hand and pithy prose. But they will also find themselves propelled to the edge of their seat by the level of suspense, the unexpected twists, the chilling detail and the ooze of the evil that pervades BLOW FLY. Years ago the Chandonne twins, Jay Talley and his brother Jean-Baptiste, raped and slaughtered their way into the lives of the Virginia team. Now, after six years, Kay, Lucy and Pete each receive a letter from Jean-Baptiste. This in itself is a shock because he was captured, tried for his devilish crimes and sits on death row. The only way he could get mail out of the prison is through his attorney, Rocco Caggiano. His nefarious plan is to lure Scarpetta to the prison with the promise that he, Jean-Baptiste, will give her the location of his brother Jay and will tell her enough to bring down the entire Chandonne cartel. He swears that he will rat out his family of drug dealers, arms dealers, murderers and their organized crime connections. Kay reads the letter and the hair on her neck stands up as a chill shoots up her spine. His beautiful handwriting stuns her as she realizes he has spent a great deal of time composing the perfect black calligraphy: "He thinks of her. He is telling her so by the very act of his artistic penmanship. She reads his words: ... I have what you want. In two weeks I will be dead and have nothing to say. Ha! You must come to me ... or it will be too late to hear my stories. [But understand] if you do not find me, I will find you." That enigmatic threat at the end is very difficult for Scarpetta to digest. What could he mean ... he is slated to die ... how could he find her? She, of course, will go see him. Lucy's letter was just as bad but she is a hotheaded young woman who decides to take matters into her own hands when she assumes the role of vigilante. With one of her colleagues she travels to Europe where the two follow a path of no return. They make a deadly choice, perform a deadly deed and get away with murder --- at least it seems so at the time. Marino, always a cop at heart, reacts to his letter in a wholly different way. His son, the boy who he rejected and who hates him, is the attorney (Rocco) for the Chandonnes and this puts Marino in a position he hates. His son is capable of the lowest and most brutal means of getting what he wants for himself and his criminal clients. Marino is forced to step out of certain boundaries that were set up when he and Rocco turned their backs on each other and are as firm when he retired as they were in the beginning. Patricia Cornwell deserves her reputation as a fine writer. Her series characters are interesting and intelligent. Her legions of fans have increased with each of her novels. But in BLOW FLY she transcends everything she has written before. In the final analysis, readers will find themselves learning the secret thoughts of the major players; and in some cases those dark and deadly musings lead to bloody consequences. In the past, Cornwell's novels were mainly plot-oriented. But this time she allows readers to get into the hearts and heads of the individuals who comprise her familiar ensemble. She has reinvented them with more depth and has made them not only more accessible but more sympathetic. BLOW FLY is a highly suspenseful read in which surprises explode and the characters move to another level of believability. --- Reviewed by Barbara Lipkien Gershenbaum
Rating:
Summary: thank goodness for libraries
Review: Cornwell's writing lacks depth in this book ... the book is disjointed and the writing is simple. After plodding along for awhile, I took the book back to the library.
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