The provided text consists of excerpts from a novel, "The Last Detective" by Robert Crais, which primarily focuses on two separate but potentially converging storylines involving the characters Elvis Cole and Joe Pike. One narrative details Pike's dangerous encounter with a massive, rabid Alaskan brown bear responsible for killing three biologists, highlighting the bear's formidable nature and Pike's struggle with a weakened arm after a previous injury. The second, more extensive plot centers on the private investigator Elvis Cole's desperate search for his girlfriend Lucy Chenier's kidnapped ten-year-old son, Ben, an abduction orchestrated by Ben's father, Richard, and carried out by deadly mercenaries led by Mike Fallon, who is seeking revenge on Cole for a past Vietnam War incident. The excerpts detail the police investigation, Cole's partnership with Pike and Detective Starkey, and Ben's harrowing experience while buried alive and his eventual rescue, concluding with the emotional fallout and Cole's realization that his violent past continues to haunt his present life.

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