Rating: 
Summary: Starts with a roar, ends with a whimper...
Review: I became addicted to the Scarpetta series and devoured every one. Sad to say, this one gave me bit of indigestion. Ms. Cornwell, what have you done to our beloved characters? Marino was always an out of shape slob, but we knew he was the best at what he did. In this book, we only got the slob. And Lucy! There was finally a strong, beautiful character who happened to be a lesbian. What happened? Her sexuality was one of the things that seemed to make Lucy who she was. And remind me not to rob any banks with her; she spilled her guts within 24 hrs.
Bringing Benton back to life sucked the life out of Scarpetta...she was strong, intelligent, and in charge, it seems, till she met him. All of a sudden she was the damsel in distress needing to be saved by the all encompassing male hero. Rudy, the human Ken doll, deserves no mention. Never. Ever. Amen.
Rating: 
Summary: Terrible read, even for a die-hard fan
Review: I really enjoy the Scarpetta books, but this one is truly unreadable, poorly written, with a hard to follow story line.I re-read The Last Precinct before starting Blow Fly, which helped, but this book is a disappointment. What a shame.
Rating:
Summary: "BLOW FLY" blows
Review: As a serious fan of Patricia Cornwell's "Scarpetta" books, I looked forward to reading "BLOW FLY." Unfortunately, I feel my money was wasted. The story drug on...page after page...chapter after chapter...only to have it hurry up and close--with all kinds of loose ends!! This is NOT the way to write a novel!! All the familiar characters have dramatically shifted in temperment and even sexual proclivity (Lucy is fooling around with her new "partner" who had previously tried to rape her when she was having a clandestine lesbian affair?? come on!!!). The twist of having Benton masterminding provocative letters being sent to spur the protagonists to action is interesting--but why reveal Benton's non-death and manipulations so early in what appears to be a continuing saga?? Really--the way this book was written makes it a big YUCK--not the best selling crime fiction we have come to expect from Ms. Cornwell.
Rating:
Summary: A good thing never lasts
Review: A good thing never lasts, and that's how it is with the Kay Scarpetta series. Blowfly just plain blows. So now Lucy is 007? And the man who tried to rape her when they were together in the FBI is now Lucy's most trusted Last Precinct partner? Come on Cornwell, that's really gross. Oh, yes, and now Lucy's thing is to sleep with him after they engage in assassinations. Oh, puleeease. What happened to Teun who started The Last Precinct with Lucy? No mention of her. And what happened to Lucy being a lesbian? Seems Cornwell wants to steer clear of that. How about the ridiculous, unbelievable machinations to explain Benton's "death" and then bring him back from it? Utterly unbelievable, even for fiction. Heeeello, if our government dimwits were really capable enough to pull off something as complicated as that, I'd have more faith in our government. Cornwell has pumped steriods into all the returning characters. Their familiar traits now exploded into superhuman characteristics beyond the reach of mere mortals. Lucy was a smart computer geek. Now she's James Bond, every catlike move calculated down to the millisecond. Benton was a profiler. He's now gifted with a superhuman ability to walk down a busy Manhattan street and memorize every face he passes. Marino was in love with Scarpetta, now he's more in love with her. Jay Talley was a psycho who passed as a sophisticated, man about the world. Now he's a white trash psycho cutting up victims to pass the time and drinking a case of beer a day. Skip Blowfly. If you want Scarpetta, re-read your old tattered books from the beginning of the series, and stop before you get to Cause of Death.
Rating:
Summary: I am sad. I miss my friends, Kay, Marino and even Lucy
Review: I made a mistake. I said I would not buy any more of Patricia Cornwell's books. But I did. It was an error. This book is awful. I am over halfway through and I do not think I can finish it. In many, many years of reading I can count on my fingers the number of books that I have started and have chosen not to finish. It is a shame. Patricia Cornwell is one of the most talented and engaging writers I have ever read. I would put her up there with John D. MacDonald, Faye Kellerman, and better than Jonathan Kellerman. But not now. It is as though only part of her is writing. You can still see the talent in her work, only it is not being used anymore. It just sort of sits there. In the past when she was cooking the talent was hidden the way it is supposed to be. Do not buy this book. If you have not read them buy any of her first ten Kay Scarpetta books. They are excellent. There you will meet some interesting people. Here you will find only regret
Rating:
Summary: Big wind-up, no delivery
Review: Having read The Last Precinct, I looked forward to its follow-up, where hopefully Cornwell would help convict the Hairy One (Jean Cardonne) and in the process also jail his crime-ridden French family. Alas, Blow Fly gets off to a good start but dissolves like the Wicked Witch in The Wizard of Oz in it last hundred pages --a puddle of slimy goo on the floor. A long dead Scarpetta lover suddenly reappears. Jean Cardonne --supposedly blinded by acid-- can suddenly see again and escapes from prison. Further we are subjected to page after page of pyscho-babble as Scarpetta's inner self is explored. And the ending, oh the ending ! It sets us up for still ANOTHER Hairy One saga.
Not for me, Ms. Cornwell, unless you catch and kill him off in the very first chapter and proceed with another totally new set of Scarpetta characters, letting Kay do what she does best, working her forensic magic with the likes of Marino to chase down the perps.
Rating:
Summary: Silliness wins
Review: My son, a former law enforcement officer, and I have long argued over the Scarpetta novels. I've said that a heroine who gets involved in the action--although not really appropriate to her job--or a weird villain--are OK within a mystery series. I thought there are values to the other books that still make them worth reading. In this case, the silliness absolutely wins. If you plan to read this book (DON'T!!!) you might not want to know that the current disgusting villain overcomes two prison guards in a fairly public area, changes clothes with one of them with no one sending an alarm. Then, though his is terribly deformed, no one notices that he doesn't match the ID of the officer whose clothes he's stolen--and indeed even manages to get off the prison grounds scott free. Except for Scarpetta herself, all the "good guys" come off as nasty, violent, and manipulative. There are also a number of scenes of torture that don't seem to advance the plot but are there only for titillation. Don't waste your time on this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Better than expected; worth a read
Review: Having taken a 4 or so year hiatus from reading Cornwell (my last read was Point of Origin, which I could not finish because it moved too slowly), I picked up Blow Fly while visiting a friend who had just completed it and told me a little bit about the plot. I became so engrossed in Blow Fly that I read it in two sittings -- something that I rarely do. Cornwell's forte is developing complex, multi-layered characters, using the distance afforded by forensic science descriptions to describe what could otherwise be blood-and-guts-gross-out-gruesome murder plots under a different pen. Unlike her early Scarpetta novels, which focus mainly on Scarpetta's development, this story focuses more on peripheral characters like Lucy, Marino, and Benton, developing them in interesting and more complete ways than before. My only disappointments were that I wanted Scarpetta to be rid of the Wolfman once and for all (it looks like that will have to wait until the next novel; I am tired of his psychological flights of fancy and his character in general), and I wanted Kay to get over Benton once and for all, and not for him to come back. However, I liked the development of the Nic and Rudy characters, and the fact that Lucy seems to be heading for firmer ground -- still tempestuous but beginning to become a little more level-headed. And Marino is still Marino, with his self-destructive ways, and I'm glad that he has remained in tact. Some people never change, and Marino has been the one personality who has remained pretty much the same, self-destructive person over the years. His character's constancy provides an interesting reference point from which to observe development of the other characters.
Rating:
Summary: ??
Review: I'm still wondering if this is really a Cornwell book. If her name had not been listed as the author I would have been certain someone else had written the book. Totally not in the typical Cornwell catagory. I hope she has plans for better in the future.
Rating:
Summary: I Wish I'd Read the Reviews First...
Review: I gobble up her books so it never occurred to me that her latest wouldn't be as good as her previous novels. What an utter disappointment Blow Fly was to me. I'm boycotting buying from now on and will check books out from the library in the future. I was appalled...
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