Blow Fly

Written by Patricia Cornwell

Narrated by Kate Reading

The Twelfth Dr Kay Scarpetta Novel.

Dr Kay Scarpetta has left Virginia in quest of peace but instead finds herself drawn into baffling, horrific murders in Florida, where she becomes entangled in an international conspiracy that confronts her with the shock of her life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Release date: Mar 17, 2015
• ISBN: 9780062376206

Patricia Cornwell

Patricia Cornwell is recognized as one of the world’s top bestselling crime authors with novels translated into thirty-six languages in more than 120 countries. Her novels have won numerous prestigious awards including the Edgar, the Creasey, the Anthony, the Macavity, and the Prix du Roman d’Aventure. Beyond the Scarpetta series, Patricia has written a definitive book about Jack the Ripper, a biography, and three more fiction series among others. Cornwell, a licensed helicopter pilot and scuba diver, actively researches the forensic technologies that inform her work. She was born in Miami, grew up in Montreat, North Carolina, and now lives and works in Boston. 

Reviews for Blow Fly

[leannmcgovern70 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Great book. Kept me on the edge of my seat.

[kelshaw2 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Disappointed in ending

[carol420 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Six years ago Benton Wesley was tortured and murdered. Since then life has become exceedingly difficult for Kay Scarpetta. Serial Killer Jean Baptiste Chardonne, the unwanted son of a crime cartel family, tried to make Kay one of his victims. When he was caught, he tried to turn the situation around and Kay was forced to go before a grand jury to defend her reputation and honor. Her one time lover Jay Talley, Jean-Baptist's fraternal twin, used her to find out if Benton told her anything about the Chardonne crime cartel.
Unable to live in her precious Virginia home, Kay moved to Del Rey Beach, Florida working as a free lance consultant. Talley and his lover are fugitives living in the bayou near Baton Rouge where ten women in fourteen months have disappeared. Jean-Baptiste is days away from state execution and wants to see Scarpetta. Marino's son is a lawyer for the Chardonne family and is a threat to all of Kay's friends. All those people are being played by one of the world's most intelligent puppet masters.

Patricia Cornwell is crafty in her use of the English language. She is able to play on the emotions of her readers. She has the rare skill of inducing discomfort in her readers' minds. "Blowfly" was written at the time that she seemed to have more compasion for her characters. Her more recent endeavous almost reads like she hates them.

[debavp · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Great, let's totally skip 6 years time with no substantial fill in--what happened for Pete's sake? If you don't want to continue the character, then kill the series. I would imagine that readers are walking, no wait running, away from the next installment. And what's with the Patterson chapter length???

[msbeautiful · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Cornwell is still wrapping up old plot points, its hard to care.

[elkehannover · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Inhaltsangabe:Schon seit drei Jahren ist Kay Scarpetta nicht mehr Chefpathologin in Virginia. Sie reist durchs ganze Land als private Beraterin oder für Vorträge und Kurse in verschiedenen Fakultäten. Inzwischen lebt sie wieder in Florida und ist bestürzt, als Jean-Baptiste Chandonne, genannt der Wolfmann, ihr einen Brief zukommen lässt.Jean-Baptiste sitzt in Texas im Todestrakt, die Vollstreckung des Urteils steht kurz bevor. Und doch träumt er noch einmal davon, Kay Scarpetta gegenüber zu sitzen, die es als Einzige seiner Opfer geschafft hat, sich zur Wehr zu setzen und seinen Angriff zu überleben!Marino und Lucy haben so ihre eigenen Methoden, mit der Vergangenheit fertig zu werden. Dabei gehen sie einem Phantom auf dem Leim, der auch Jahre zuvor schon alle Strippen im Hintergrund gezogen hat. Und alle Strippen führen nach Baton Rouge, einem Ort in Louisiana. Dort verschwinden immer wieder Frauen und einige ältere ungeklärte Mordfälle gibt es auch noch. Kay begibt sich unbewußt in höchste Lebensgefahr …Mein Fazit:Puh … wo fange ich an? Ich lese ja nur gelegentlich Krimis, diese Reihe habe ich nun bis hierhin geschafft. Einige Bände waren gut, anderer weniger. Dieser Band gehört für mich zum Schlechtesten bislang in der ganzen Reihe.Die vorherigen Fälle hat Kay Scarpetta bislang aus ihrer Sicht geschildert. Das hat mir meist ganz gut gefallen, denn so konnte man mitraten und überlegen, wer denn der Mörder ist. In diesem Band wird ein Stil-Wechsel vollzogen. Warum auch immer. Man weiß von Anfang, wer der Mörder in Baton Rouge ist. Das ganze Ausmaß wird einem aber erst später bewußt. Im Grunde ist diese Geschichte kein Krimi, sondern ein Thriller, wie ich finde mit zu vielen Handlungs-Strängen. Das drückt sich auch in den manchmal sehr kurzen Kapiteln aus. Zuweilen hatte ich das Gefühl, ein Drehbuch zu lesen, nur etwas ausführlicher beschrieben. Die Figuren sind allesamt bekannt, es gibt nur sehr wenige neue Figuren und ihnen wird auch wenig Raum zur freien Entfaltung gegeben, da sie in der gesamten Geschichte auch eine eher untergeordnete Rolle spielen. Dennoch sind sie wichtig und ich finde, da hätte die Autorin mehr Zeit investieren können.Ja, und tatsächlich gibt es die Auferstehung eines Toten. Ich dachte: Hoppla! Das hat sich die Autorin aber schön zurecht gelegt! Das eine oder andere fand ich dann auch ein bisschen an den Haaren herbei gezogen und einiges wurde auch zusehr beleuchtet. Da ist weniger eben doch mehr.Die vielen Handlungsstränge führen im Endeffekt alle zu einem Ort: Baton Rouge. Dort findet der Showdown statt, der dann allerdings auch schon fast keine Überraschungen mehr brachte. Eine eifrige Krimi-Leserin hätte sicher alles vorhergesehen, mich zumindest hat da nichts mehr geschockt! Schade.Und leider ist mit der Familie Chandonne noch immer nicht alles geklärt bzw. erledigt. Es gibt denn da wohl noch eine Runde – die vierte! Nun gut, ich habe noch einen Band der Reihe in meinem SuB, es wird also noch weitergelesen – aber mit einer Pause. Dieser bekommt drei Sterne, obwohl ich zwischendurch auch zwei Sterne vergeben wollte.

[ben1wildeboer · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The book was a good read- keeping me captivated through much of it. And then...it just ended. I must say I was disappointed in the way the story tied up. There was a lot of buildup for a very lacking finale.

[sexysuzy · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

not one of p.c,s greatest a bit dissapointed.

[woodsathome · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

I remember a time when Patricia Cornwell's books where on my "must purchase-hardback-day it comes out list. No more.Scarpetta seems a shadow of her former self and there is far too much Lucy. I hate Lucy. What I really hate is that I used to like the character until she became a super-hero carictature and took over far too many of the scenes.

[bnielsen_30 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

Baton Rouge. Jean-Baptist Chandonne.???Dårlig, dårlig bog med helt utroværdig historie.

[sivani_2 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

The series had been deteriorating for a while, but after the grave disappointment of this installment, I will not be looking for any additions to the series.

[buffalogr · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The plot twisted and intricate, the characters developed nicely. Scarpetta seems like she plays a smaller role, or rather other characters emerge. Old villains continue to plague the members of the Last Precinct. The ending leaves room for another novel...I'll get it next month.

[naggedman · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I started liking this book when she for once seemed to be steering away from the usual overdescription of wonderful dwellings, cars etc, but sadly she reverted to type. And the story also was unusual and kept me reading, but with a deeply disappointing end, where it appears that the author got fed up with writing it and brings it to a very sudden and unsatisfactory conclusion - while, of course, leaving a thread hanging on which to hook another novel.

[booksfordeb · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A good read but not one of my favorites. This is not one of Cornwell's better Scarpetta novels. A little slow to begin with and then full speed ahead for the end. I liked the earlier works much better.

[fantasma_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

As it's said in the JE above, I defintly missed Scarpetta. We hear almost nothing from her, she doesn't do her usual work, and even when she's there we fell it's not the Kay we know.She is drawn to some murders in Florida, but doesn't help solving them. More: we know from the beginning who's doing them and when we get to the end, there's nothing worth the waiting. These book are usually full of adrenaline and rush, but this one is soooooo slow... Half of the book's spent in prison, hearing what Chandonne thinks, feels and does. One of the really "bad guys" is killed by the end, but without fight or anything exciting, we are only told that he's dead!!And the real surprise of the book feels so weak, with so little enthusiasm, that the only way to end the book is with relief for finally getting to page 465...

[literaryfeline · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

It has been a long while since I visited the world of Kay Scarpetta. In this installment of the series, Kay Scarpetta is a forensic pathologist, former Chief Medical Examiner of Virginia. She is called in to consult on the death of a wealthy woman who died of a drug overdose. Kay soon discovers that her death is tied into the organized crime family, the Chandonnes, with whom Kay has had intimate dealings with before. Jean-Baptiste Chandonne, the Wolf Man, sits on death row and is demanding an audience with Kay, wanting to share family secrets that could lead to the undoing of his family. Jay Talley, the fraternal twin of Jean-Baptiste, and his girlfriend, Bev Kiffin, are hiding out in the bayou where a rash of serial murders are occurring.

I found this book to be different from her previous ones in the series, the focus less about the crime and more about the loss, deception and relationships of the characters. In a way, it was a refreshing change from the dark and tension filled books Ms. Cornwell has given us in the past. I did like Blow Fly over all, although I admit that I missed the tension build up from her previous books--I just didn't feel it this time--and the ending disappointed me. In a way, it fit with the perspective that Ms. Cornwell was focusing not so much on the serial killings and Jean-Baptiste (those were mere subplots it seemed, quickly handled and disregarded in the end) and more so on the relationships. However, Ms. Cornwell spent so much time "in the heads" of all these characters that the ending felt rushed and was not very satisfying.

[delphimo_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Cornwell writes a descriptive and detailed novel. The utter meanness of criminals is hard to digest, at times. In this caper, the good guys and the bad guys collide. In the end, Benton is alive. The evil twin Jay has been killed and his werewolf brother has escaped from prison and roaming the world. I felt that Cornwell left too many loose ends in this novel. A small boy, Albert, seems to hand in suspension. His father, Jay, killed his mother, and now Jay is dead. Albert is the heir to the Chandonne fortune, what is to happen to him. Marino seems to be on the fast track to a heart attack, and Lucy needs to "Chill". I enjoy reading Cornwell's novels, but am amazed with the details given. Sometimes, I feel that Scarpetta is some invincible persona. I am unsure of the meeting between Benton and Kay, when Kay realizes that Benton is alive. Kay's emotions seem flat.

[danajean_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

A very haphazard story, I think I liked it better when it was The Silence of the Lambs. Not very original and not very exciting. This is the first Cornwell I've picked up in a long time. Not one of her better.

[elizabethcromb · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

Very grim and unsavoury story about the sexual abuse and murder of women by psychopaths. Interesting insights into the American legal, policing and criminal treatment systems but not a pleasant read.