The Kay Scarpetta series has included some of the best selling and best written novels in the forensic pathology/mystery genre.

Then Patricia Cornwell had some kind of breakdown of focus.

That’s the only way to explain why she took the otherwise inexplicable turn with the series that began with Blow Fly. Up to this point, this series was written in the first person narrative voice. In Blow Fly, it is no longer Kay telling her stories to the world, instead, a nameless, faceless omniscient third person narrator intones soullessly about “Scarpetta” and introduces new characters who disappear in the last chapters of this book without the least bit of explanation. On one page they’re there, on the next, gone.

Key characters, particularly Kay’s niece, Lucy, are taken in striking new directions which are simply hostile to the development of their personas from the inception of the series.

And then there are the last chapters. Oy. What a muddled, abrupt, illogical mess! Yes, two key matters are resolved in truly unquestionable fashion but there is no pleasure in those resolutions at all. The key action occurs “off-screen” and our heretofore omniscient – and extremely wordy – narrator is somehow struck blind and silent about the particulars of how these crucial scenarios unfold.

This book came after a considerable wait while Cornwell digressed into vanity projects, outside interests and romantic controversies. The faithful readers who walked with Kay, Pete and Lucy from the days of Postmortem (and want proper vindication of Benton Wesley and a realistic explanation and conclusion to the vast criminal conspiracy story that was revealed in Black Notice) were let down in the worst way. We deserved better—but more importantly, the characters in the Scarpetta universe deserved better too.