Softcover

ISBN 10: 0747258333 ISBN 13: 9780747258339

Publisher: Headline Book Publishing, 1999

One by one, the children of Moonlight Bay are disappearing. No one knows if they are dead or alive. Christopher Snow, suffering from the rare disorder xeroderma pigmentosum, has glimpsed the dark and torrid secrets of the small-town community where he has spent his entire life. And only he has the key to the truth - a truth that could only exist in the genetic chaos of Moonlight Bay.

Review:

Chris Snow, the light-phobic, oddball hero of Dean Koontz's Fear Nothing, is once again caught in the middle of something ugly. The children (and pets) of Moonlight Bay, California, are disappearing. The first to go is Jimmy Wing, the son of Snow's former girlfriend, Lilly. Then Snow's own hyper-intelligent dog goes missing. Snow decides that he will find them, but what he uncovers is more than just a simple kidnapping; before he can turn back, he's up against an age-old vendetta, an active time machine, and a genetic experiment gone awry.

Seize the Night offers up the same eclectic mix of characters that appeared in Fear Nothing: boardhead Bobby, disc jockey Sasha, Snow, and all of their friends band together to find the missing kids and figure out why the people of Moonlight Bay are morphing into demonic versions of their former selves. They outsmart corrupt cops, outrun genetically enhanced monkeys, and outlive a time warp with a vengeance--all between nightfall and sunrise, the only time that Snow can be outside.

Though the premise is a little bit hard to believe, and the surf lingo occasionally irritating, Seize the Night is ultimately fun to read. Koontz successfully draws you in and keeps you entertained through an unexpected climax and an enlightening resolution. --Mara Friedman

From the Inside Flap:

There are no rules in the dark, no place to feel safe, no escape from the shadows. But to save the day, you must...Seize the Night.

At no time does Moonlight Bay look more beautiful than at night. Yet it is precisely then that the secluded little town reveals its menace. Now children are disappearing. From their homes. From the streets. And there's nothing their families can do about it. Because in Moonlight Bay, the police work their hardest to conceal crimes and silence victims. No matter what happens in the night, their job is to ensure that nothing disturbs the peace and quiet of Moonlight Bay....

Christopher Snow isn't afraid of the dark. Forced to live in the shadows because of a rare genetic disorder, he knows the night world better than anyone. He believes the lost children are still alive and that their disappearance is connected to the town's most carefully kept, most ominous secret--a secret only he can uncover, a secret that will force him to confront an adversary at one with the most dangerous darkness of all. The darkness inside the human heart.
From the Paperback edition.