Blow Fly (Scarpetta)
by Patricia Cornwell
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Book Summary Information
Author: Patricia CornwellEdition: Mass Market Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2004-09-07
ISBN: 0425198731
Number of pages: 480
Publisher: Berkley
Book Reviews of Blow Fly (Scarpetta)
Book Review: Loose, disjointed mess with increasingly ridiculous characters
Summary: 2 Stars
The best way to describe 'Blow Fly' is that it's the book Patricia Cornwell was forced to write to tie up all those loose ends she left hanging in 'The Last Precinct'. This is a black mark against the book right from the start. After clearing the decks with 'The Last Precinct' and a three year wait, we'd be expecting the Scarpetta series to take off in a bold and exciting new direction, but instead she's forced to drag out the Werewolf/Chandonne storyline for a third time. By itself, this wouldn't be so bad, but Cornwell's writing has declined precipitously since `The Last Precinct', which itself was a step down from her early classics. `Blow Fly' is a loose, fragmented mess of a novel, with none of the elements that made the Scarpetta series so great.
Take the characters. Cornwell has taken the traits of our favourite people to the most ridiculous extremes. Scarpetta is apparently so famous and respected that the mere mention of her name causes young rookies to go goggle-eyed and serial killers to commit horrific crimes in memory of her. Lucy is now a cross between James Bond and Bruce Wayne, with her unimaginable wealth and private quasi-vigilante police force. The inexplicably resurrected Benton Wesley was not just a profiler but an undercover agent who six years ago came close to taking out a criminal cartel almost single-handedly (I guess this must have been during his lunch breaks at Behavioural Sciences?). The only character who is the same is Marino, who is as gruff and slovenly as ever, although apparently in later books Cornwell transforms him into a bench-pressing biker (WTF??).
But where Cornwell has really lost it is in her writing style and plotting. There are scores of plot details that make no logical sense. Jay Talley is a member of an all-powerful criminal family who has the local authorities in their pocket, yet is forced to live as a beer-swilling white trash hillbilly in the Louisiana swamps? Benton Wesley was so terrified of the Chandonnes that he faked his own death and lived in fear for 6 years, yet suddenly comes out of exile and takes them down without raising a sweat. The convoluted manner in which Guidon tries to lure Scarpetta to the house....why not just make a phone call and invite her (she's the victim's sister after all, Scarpetta would have been keen to talk to her anyway). No real explanation is given for how Jean-Baptiste Chandonne so easily escaped Death Row, apparently his "inner rage" and physical strength is enough. The list goes on. And the whole Grand Chandonne Conspiracy thing seems less and less like a deliberately planned storyline and increasingly like a cheap excuse for Cornwell to explain away plot holes and tie up loose story threads from her earlier books. This is the fundamental problem with where the Scarpetta series is going: Cornwell badly bungled `The Last Precinct' with those ridiculous out-of-nowhere plot and character twists, and with 'Blow Fly' she is forced to try a second time to jam the whole Chandonne story together like a jigsaw with half the pieces missing.
The switch to the third-person narrative is another problem. While not a bad idea in theory, once again Cornwell bungles it by giving us too many perspectives and jumping between them too frequently. There are 120-odd chapters in this 500 page book, and the perspective shifts almost every chapter, making the story more confusing and complex than it needs to be. Too much time is spent going inside the head of every single character, often revealing nothing beyond mundane thoughts and emotions, meaning the book ends on a very rushed and abrupt note. And seeing Scarpetta reduced from narrator to Just Another Character actually makes her come across as weak and uninteresting. We gain no real new perspectives on her, everyone just talks about how beautiful and talented and perfect she is.
It's always sad when a once-gifted artist just suddenly loses it for no reason, and I really hope Cornwell gets her mojo back. `Blow Fly' can't hold a candle to her early works: there's little actual forensic science, the characters have become cartoonish exaggerations, the plot is all over the place, the story is poorly paced, and very little actually happens despite the book's length. Loyal fans will be deeply disappointed with `Blow Fly'.....unfortunately, if they've read `Black Notice' and `The Last Precinct' they pretty much have to struggle through this to see how the Chandonne story arc ends.
Summary of Blow Fly (Scarpetta)
Readers are in for the shock of Kay Scarpetta's life.
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