Blow Fly

Patricia Cornwell

Little, Brown £12.99 Rel Oct 2003

Reviewed by Maureen Carlyle

I am probably the only contributor to SHOTS who has never previously read a Scarpetta novel. I think the disadvantages of this probably outweigh the advantages, as it is an ongoing saga in which heroes and villains run from book to book. One thing is for sure: I could never have been a forensic pathologist.

Kay Scarpetta is now in private practice in Florida, for reasons which have obviously been made clear in a previous novel. Her old foes, the totally evil Chandonne brothers, are still in the land of the living. The hideous "Wolfman" , Jean-Baptiste, is on Death Row in Texas, and his twin, the beautiful Jean-Paul, now known as Jay Talley, is busy murdering women in an unspeakable fashion in Louisiana. Unknown to Scarpetta, her ex-lover, Benton, whom she thinks is dead, is still working undercover on the Chandonne case, as is her niece Lucy, whose hush-hush outfit, the Last Precinct, appears to be above the law.

Scarpetta runs a class for young cops and crime-scene technicians. One of her best students is Nic Robilliard, who comes from the Baton Rouge force. She is working on the case of the missing – assumed murdered – women in Louisiana, and is upset because they are getting nowhere. She is determined to prove herself, spurred on by the fact that her own mother was murdered in Baton Rouge a few years ago. When Scarpetta is contacted by Dr. Sam Lanier, the Coroner at Baton Rouge, asking for her help on the cold case murder of Charlotte Dard, it appears to be an extraordinary coincidence.

The action moves with great rapidity between widely-distanced locations, the most haunting being the mysterious and sinister bayous of Louisiana. All the loose ends are gradually tied together, and the final few chapters are really first-rate. But all the cruelty and gore is not for me – sorry to be such a weakling.