Orlando Sentinel
Well-written, suspenseful ... [a] page-turner.
Providence Sunday Journal
Goddard’s style is smooth and meticulous.... You have a deliciously layered plot that gets stranger and stranger, as the DNA gets weirder and weirder, and the story gets scarier and scarier.
Publishers Weekly
Goddard has committed the cardinal sin of sequel writers here--he's written a novel that can barely stand on its own because it never acquaints readers with the plot of the previous book (First Evidence) in a fashion that helps the current book make sense. There are plenty of hints, but it takes almost 100 pages before the broad outlines of the premise are revealed. Det. Sgt. Colin Cellars of the Oregon State Patrol and his friends Bobby Dawson, Jody Catlin and Dr. Malcolm Byzor have had a previous run-in with aliens who can turn themselves into rocks and stones when they're injured or dormant. Now a group of aliens has been sent to retrieve the stones/aliens that were left behind at the end of the last book, and eliminate witnesses like Colin, Jody and especially Bobby, who is on the run for reasons that are never made clear (the vital fact that the previous book began with Bobby's supposed death is never revealed at all in this one). All this confusion isn't helped by Goddard's habit of building up to an exciting scene and then sketching it in after the fact instead of relating it in real time (he does this with a grisly murder and a pileup of 72 cars and four trucks). And it's even more annoying when the end of the book is reached, and there is no closure at all, except the words "The End"--which, like most everything else in this thriller, promise what they can't deliver. (Feb. 6) Forecast: The popularity of First Evidence will ensure plenty of readers for this novel. It's Goddard's next book that will suffer the aftermath of reader disappointment. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.
VOYA
Crime scene investigator Colin Cellars returns in this sequel to First Evidence (Bantam, 1999/VOYA December 1999). During the two months after Cellars's encounter with the aliens, he has been on administrative leave pending a psychological evaluation. Despite being off-duty, however, he is drawn again into a series of inexplicable events involving his childhood friends Jody Catlin, Malcolm Bysor, and Bobby Dawson; assorted aliens with touchy tempers; and Elmer Fudd. The plot moves at a breathless pace, with action taking place over a brief twenty-four hour period. As with the earlier book, this novel is plot driven, although Goddard uses a somewhat finer hand this time, with less expository narrative and more action, and employs humor to good effect. The plot is packed with surprises, including the deaths of likeable characters. Goddard pulls no punches here. He manages to tie up loose ends from the previous novel, but the ending leaves the reader wondering whether future novels about Cellars are planned. Goddard seems simultaneously to wrap things up and leave them open. Character development is stronger providing more complex main characters and giving more depth to Cellars. Some dialogue seems a bit stilted, but overall Goddard keeps things moving. He also summarizes the previous action so smoothly that the novel stands alone well, but readers of the first book will be especially happy to see this title on the shelf. VOYA CODES: 3Q 4P S A/YA (Readable without serious defects; Broad general YA appeal; Senior High, defined as grades 10 to 12; Adult and Young Adult). 2001, Bantam, 427p, $23.95. Ages 16 to Adult. Reviewer: Donna Scanlon SOURCE: VOYA, August 2001 (Vol. 24, No.3)
From The Critics
Oregon State Detective Sergeant Colin Cellars is on administrative leave pending the results of a psychiatric examination following a strange X- Files-like incident. Since the events with the violet-eyed extraterrestrial, Colin is a true believer. As such, he has set an Outer Perimeter in his remote cabin in the mountains near Jasper Springs, Oregon to warn him of any intruder, especially serial killing aliens.Taking the death rate seriously, the state establishes two six-person teams of crime scene investigators to search the area for the serial predators. However, Colin believes that he and his three amigos (ex DEA Bobby Dawson, electronic guru Malcolm Byzor, and lab technician Jody Catlin) will ultimately be the team to stop the rising homicide rate and send an unfriendly ET home or die in the process. Outer Perimeter is an engaging, cleverly designed mixing of science fiction elements with a forensic-police procedural thriller. The exciting plot moves quickly forward with plenty of action, but references to the first book will, on occasion, leave the bewildered new reader first seeking evidence as to what previously happened. Overall, the spine tingling story stands alone as the fearsome foursome battles with a villain most likely not of this earth in Ken Goddard's latest chiller.
Kirkus Reviews
Goddard's standby hero, roving Oregon State Police Crime Scene Investigator Colin Cellars, returns from his dip into the paranormal in First Evidence (1999), which put him in contact with flying-saucer freaks and shape-shifting silicon-based life forms, to find himself embroiled in what is now"second contact" with extraterrestrials. The alien Allesandra, who seduced Cellars in the earlier novel, also returns, lovely and naked, amid broad authorial hints that she will return again in a future installment about the extraterrestrials and their spaceship. Did the aliens somehow earlier infiltrate the (fictitious) Bancoo tribe of North Americans to set up their own schemes? And how much of this hullabaloo is really only a hallucination on Cellars's part? As with The X-Files, Goddard has decided to take extraterrestrials seriously as his game plan for a series. And as with The X-Files, many readers won't.
