This collection of excerpts is from a novel titled "Dead Past" by Beverly Connor, which follows the protagonist Diane Fallon, a forensic anthropologist and museum director, as she investigates a series of interconnected crimes in Rosewood, Georgia. The primary event is a deadly explosion at a meth lab in a house rented by Bartram University students, which leads to Diane’s work identifying the numerous charred bodies and dealing with the political fallout and media attention. Secondary storylines include the murder of an arson investigator, Marcus McNair, the death of a carjacker, Blake Stanton, and an art theft at Diane's museum, which she eventually links to Stanton and the explosion. Furthermore, Diane and her husband, Frank, become involved in the twenty-year-old cold case of a colleague, Juliet Price, involving a childhood kidnapping and a coded message hidden in a doll, all of which ultimately ties back to the meth lab kingpin and a vigilante quest for revenge over the student deaths.

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“What did the council decide on item 42?” — answered with the speaker and the moment.