As First Evidence begins, Cellars finds himself tricked into presenting a lecture before the Alliance of Believers, a group of UFO enthusiasts. When he shows up to meet his old friend, Robert Dawson, he finds himself listed as the guest speaker -- and no sign of Dawson. Given his audiences and his expertise, he delivers a lecture on collecting evidence at a first contact site. (A bit of foreshadowing of what is to come.) By the end of the evening he discovers why Dawson failed to show up for their meeting -- he ends up collecting evidence at the scene of Dawson's murder. Given Dawson's reputation for being able to take care of himself, Cellars is eager to find out who, or what, murdered his friend. It is the beginning of a bizarre investigation involving disappearing corpses, an elaborate cover-up, and some high-tech detective work.

The only trouble is that the book has a hard time living up to the premise. A large part of the story works off of fear and suspense. It's difficult to build an atmosphere that keeps a reader on edge and Goddard falls short in the attempt. There were parts of the book where I knew I should have been apprehensive for Cellars and some of the other characters, but it just didn't happen. The whole book has more of the feel of a movie than of a novel. Many of the scenes would be great on the big screen with falling rain, poor lighting, and just a hint of what might be lurking at the edge of the woods. But a heightened feeling of suspense just didn't come through with the written word.

The book is also missing a lot of the detail you might expect in books versus movies. The exhaustive evidence list and the crime scene diagram lead you to believe that they will play an important role in the story, that they are important clues in an elaborate puzzle and that Cellars will play Sherlock Holmes and use every piece of evidence to reconstruct the crime and solve the mystery. Alas, they appear to be no more than window dressing. After glancing at them at the start, I never looked at them again while I was reading the book.

Seeing that Goddard is a former forensic scientist and crime lab director, you might think there would be scenes describing the collection of evidence in mind-numbing detail. At the very least, I expected Cellars' "guest lecture" on collecting evidence at a first contact site to be a very detailed reflection of how Goddard would himself conduct the investigation. Instead we get:

"And then, for the next fifteen minutes, he proceeded to walk them through it, step-by-step, explaining exactly how to set a perimeter and conduct a methodical crime scene search. And how each typical category of located evidence -- paint, glass, soil, residue, hair, fiber, tissue, bone, or impression mark -- had to be properly documented, marked, packaged, tagged, and preserved for later examination by a scientific expert."

The other main problem is with the characters. Other than Cellars, all of the characters are treated superficially. They are essentially one-dimensional window dressing for the story. At least if this was a movie you would have the added dimension of appearance. There is supposed to be some romantic tension and perhaps jealousy between some of the characters, but frankly I couldn't feel it. Even Cellars, the main character, isn't very well developed. By the end of the book we don't really know all that much more about him. He's a crime scene specialist, he has some personal involvement in the case, and we know how he works. But we don't know anything about him personally. Where he lives, what he eats, what he wears, his hobbies... I just didn't get a sense of the character. It is difficult to stay interested and focused on a story when you feel no connection to the main character.

So what's the final verdict? It's an interesting story that would probably play out better on a movie screen than in print. Goddard just didn't create enough of the atmosphere of fear and suspense that would have made this a truly gripping novel. The superficial treatment of the characters, their background and personalities didn't help matters either. If you're looking for a straight mystery/thriller or a straight science fiction novel, there are better books out there. But if you are looking for a light, interesting mix of the two, you may want to check out First Evidence.