Diane Fallon is awakened in the wee hours of the morning by an explosion in the neighborhood. Soon there is an evacuation. As she's trying to leave, an injured and half-crazed youth tries to carjack her. Due to her quick thinking, she gets him immobilized in her car and escapes.

Turns out the explosion was a meth lab in the basement of an apartment building where many of the University students lived. Plus there was a party going on in one of the apartments during the blast. Dr. Fallon and her crime scene investigators begin trying to identify the victims and determine who was responsible.

Other murders begin happening that appear to be connected in some way. Her people are stretched thin trying to keep up with the various cases. Plus the fire investigator gets in their way many times and compromises some of the evidence.

In the meantime, one of Dr. Fallon's museum employees, Juliet, is having anxiety attacks related to an event in her past. Diane is asked to look into it, and soon finds herself in the middle of danger.

I love how this author intertwines multiple cases and storylines. You know they'll all come together in the end. It made it really hard for me to put down this book wanting to see how everything related.

I love Diane and both her museum staff and her crime scene staff. The author has created a great cast of characters for this series.

I like the fact that she manages both as I get a glimpse into both areas. It gives the series a lot of diversity and keeps it fresh.

I look forward to reading the next in the series. Hope it isn't too long before it is published! I highly recommend this book.

The plot has been rather thoroughly hashed out in other reviews except you should know that one review has the plot all wrong. The woman who was having PTSD symptoms DID NOT see her family killed. The boy who tried to hijack the heroine's car did not appear stoned. Also it takes a few days for him to end up dead rather than "not long afterward".

I would like, however, to add my voice that this is a very good book in a very good series. Diane Fallon is a very clever and resourceful character who acts quickly and decisively when the situation demands it. In fact, my only quibble is that she is a little to perfect.

But don't let that put you off reading this very good mystery which takes a handful of threads, all seeming separate, and draws them together into a n exciting conclusion.

I have just finished reading this much anticipated book. Beverly Connor's work rates as my 'crime find' for 2006: As an avid reader of serial character crime books ie. Patricia Cornwall, James Lee Burke, Kathy Reich, Janet Evanovich, I'm always on the lookout for similar series. I'm sure a lot of other readers hit the same dilemma - there's only so much a good writer can crank out in a year, so it is deeply satisfying to find another top class crime series. Beverly Connor writes 'forensic anthropology' crime and she does it with great flair. In fact, I'm really flabbergasted that she has not received the acclaim (and the huge monetary contracts I imagine) lauded upon her peers.

Diane Fallon is a strong, believable character working first as head of a museum and also as a forensic anthropologist via the crime lab installed IN her museum courtesy of local politics (sound familiar? see below). Connor has hereby constructed a tenable foundation for what I hope will be a long series. Each book reveals a little more detail about the main character's history, Connor is never repetitive, nor does she ever 'spoonfeed' her readers. I enjoy occasionally having to google some esoteric piece of bone lore or look up a medical dictionary, but neither is this mandatory. The reader can always pick up the meaning from the context. In Dead Past, I got intrigued with 'crystal skulls' for example, something about which I knew nothing.

Dead Past lived up to and exceeded my expectations and I look forward with anticipation to Connor's next book, which will be released in Feb 2008. Yet another long wait and another series to add to the order list! My only slight complaint with this latest book is that it wasn't long enough! That is positive criticism, I'm sure all afficionados of crime series get that same sinking feeling in the gut when they gallop past the half way mark of a good crime book. The pacing of Dead Past however really could have stood another 100 or so pages, it is set up really well with the fire in the meth lab and associated deaths, the investigation centring around this and local politics. Gradually the reader is also introduced to what at first seemed a secondary plot, that of Juliet and her history. The second half of the book wraps everything up a little too quickly, never so that the action is unbelievable, just I personally would have welcomed more of Diane Fallon, her love interest Frank and her co-workers Jin, Neva and David. Connor has interestingly left Mike and Korey pretty much out of this book, I would hope to see more of them in the next as well as some more caving which has featured as Fallon's main hobby in her previous books in the series.

Connor has put a lot of work into constructing a realistic setting with well-developed and interesting characters, people you want to learn more about. The Diane Fallon series has all the hallmarks of a great crime series and I would love to see her books made ACCESSIBLE, they are not even available in Australia at our major bookstores.

Another item of interest: does this museum/crime lab setting seem familiar to anyone else? Connor's series predates 'Bones', Kathy Reichs excellent tv series, which finds Temperance Brennan based in ... a museum (the Jeffersonian) conducting her forensic anthropology with a similar team, with similar sophisticated technology and increasing involvement with law enforcement and even the associated political angsting over the ethics etc of doing so. I just raised an eyebrow at this and wondered if anyone else found it interesting.

Well done Beverly Connor. I am putting you on my permanent order list for new releases which I would prefer to receive as luscious first edition hardcovers or sexy trades than the cheaply packaged little paperbacks that aesthetically do not do the series justice. I would also love to see Connor's work come out with the kind of publicity given the writers mentioned above, she writes her hind end off and the four books so far are all 5-star. Good luck and I hope other crime readers start picking up this series.

A 3:00 a.m. explosion wakes residents of the charming Victorian neighborhood. Potentially lethal gas mixes with the smoke and flame causing police to begin evacuation of the surrounding area. As people flee their homes, a half-crazed youth with a gun attempts and fails to hijack a passing car. Desperately, he turns his weapon on the lone woman in a second car and demands she open the door. So begins this latest installment in Beverly Connor's series featuring Dr. Dianne Fallon, forensic anthropologist, head of the Rosewood, Georgia crime lab, and director of the local natural history museum.

Morning finds Dr Fallon and her crime scene technicians sorting through the burned home, recovering the bodies of more than thirty college students who had been attending a party there. Making this heart wrenching recovery even more difficult is the power struggle that erupts between different law enforcement agencies each wanting total control of the scene.

While the evidence is being processed, other murders occur complicating the investigation. Then information comes to light involving a twenty-year-old kidnapping. Dianne Fallon must use all the resources at her disposal to solve these somehow connected mysteries and gain justice for the victims and their families.

Connor's packs a lot of action into this novel while weaving together threads from a World War I legend, a twenty-year-old cold case, and a series of modern day murders. Especially interesting to me is her main character, quick thinking and multi talented Dr. Dianne Fallon. Connor's always includes plenty of forensic information but never bogs down the story line with too much detail. The fast pace and the shifting focus keep the reader's interest until the end.

The explosion shook the neighborhood waking up forensic anthologist Diane Fallon. The chemicals spewed into the air leads to a full evacuation. At the same time as people leave, an apparent stoned college student tries to hijack Diane's car; thank goodness for child proof locks. However not long afterward she learns her car-jacking culprit is dead and that the explosion was a meth lab, which Police Chief Garnett directs she and her Rosewood Crime Lab investigators to filter through in order to identify the thirty plus dead students.

At the same time she digs through the ruins, a new employee Juliet Price is shook by a real crime cold case TV show that awakens a buried trauma. Eighteen years ago as a little girl she watched a killer murder her family including her. However, the culprit made one mistake, Juliet survived the assault, but her mind shut down what she saw so that she could cope; that is until now. The only problem is the killer saw the show and plans to rectify the error. Soon the case of eighteen years ago and the meth mess will converge with Diane at the vortex.

The latest Fallon investigative tale (see DEAD SECRET) is a fantastic investigative mystery that grips the audience from the opening heated explosion until the final frozen climax. Diane is terrific as she juggles several cases including that of her new employee Juliet. Few writers match the intense suspense of Beverly Connors especially when it comes to her "Dead" thrillers.

Harriet Klausner