Sign up for our newsletters to receive our Best of 2024 ezine!

Summary and Reviews of Seize The Night by Dean Koontz

Seize The Night by Dean Koontz

Seize The Night

by Dean Koontz
  • Critics' Consensus (3):
  • Readers' Rating (17):
  • First Published:
  • Jan 1, 1999, 401 pages
  • Paperback:
  • Nov 1999, 443 pages
  • Rate this book

About This Book

Book Summary

In Moonlight Bay, California, children are disappearing. The police cannot be trusted to solve their mystery, because in Moonlight Bay the purpose of the police is often to conceal the crime.

Enter a world unlike any other. A world of the night. A world created brilliantly by master suspense novelist Dean Koontz. The world where his blockbuster novels Fear Nothing and Seize the Night are set. Welcome to Moonlight Bay, California, home of Christopher Snow.

Forced to live in the shadows, Snow knows the night world better than the dark adversaries that stalk his quiet town. And along with his exceptional dog Orson, and his friends, Snow will challenge those who try to take advantage.

When you live in the darkness of Moonlight Bay as Christopher Snow does, and you are desperately trying to save the day, you abide by two guiding principles: fear nothing and seize the night!

Christopher Snow, the protagonist of Fear Nothing, returns and is on the trail of missing children in Koontz's newest thriller. Snow believes the children are still alive and that their disappearances have something to do with clandestine scientific experiments at a nearby abandoned military base.

In Moonlight Bay, California, children are disappearing. The police cannot be trusted to solve their mystery, because in Moonlight Bay the purpose of the police is often to conceal the crime. Christopher Snow, whose rare genetic disorder -- xeroderma pigmentosum, XP -- leaves him dangerously vulnerable to light, sets out to find the missing son of a former sweetheart and then the other lost children. The disappearances have something to do with clandestine scientific experiments at a nearby abandoned military base, Fort Wyvern. Chris challenges those who would conceal even the most heinous crimes in order to keep the secrets of Fort Wyvern, and his genetic handicap becomes his greatest advantage: Forced to live a life in shadows, Chris knows the night world better than anyone -- better even than his adversaries.

Prologue

My name is Christopher Snow. The following account is an installment in my personal journal. If you are reading it, I am probably dead. If I am not dead, then because of the reportage herein, I am now--or soon will be--one of the most famous people on the planet. If no one ever reads this, it will be because the world as we know it has ceased to exist and human civilization is gone forever. I am no more vain than the average person, and instead of universal recognition, I prefer the peace of anonymity. Nevertheless, if the choice is between Armageddon and fame, I'd prefer to be famous.

Chapter One

Elsewhere, night falls, but in Moonlight Bay it steals upon us with barely a whisper, like a gentle dark-sapphire surf licking a beach. At dawn, when the night retreats across the pacific toward distant Asia, it is reluctant to go, leaving deep black pools in alleyways, under parked cars, in culverts, and beneath the leafy canopies of ancient oaks.

According to Tibetan...

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Reviews

Media Reviews

Kirkus Reviews
This tour de force, though less intense than Intensity (1996), has Koontz, the nimble master of the macabre, inventing a hugely empty California army base once used for secret experiments and now, in its vast, moonlit state, called Dead Town.....With headlong glee, Koontz again unveils encyclopedic intelligence about how things work in the physical world and how to bolt sentences into the moonlight.

Library Journal
Christopher Snow is back. Fans of Koontz's last offering, Fear Nothing (LJ 2/1/98), will remember Chris as the young victim of XP (xeroderma pigmentosum), a rare and deadly genetic condition that forces him to avoid light. Here, the horrifying tale of Chris's hometown, Moonlight Bay, continues to unfold. ....Koontz successfully blends his special brand of suspense from generous measures of mystery, horror, sf, and the techno-thriller genre. But his greatest triumph in this series is the creation of Christopher Snow, a thought-provoking narrator with a facility for surfer-lingo and dark humor who, despite his extreme situation, is an undeniably believable character.

Publishers Weekly
No bestselling suspense novelist creates magnetic characters as consistently as Koontz does.... This novel stands as vintage Koontz, a rousing crowd-pleaser that recapitulates some of his recurrent themes--the pain of the outsider; the power of love; the threat of scientism--while sturdily continuing a trilogy that's shaping up as his masterwork.

Reader Reviews

Laurel H

a great 2nd
This a great 2nd book in what I hope will be an ongoing series It left me wanting more Chris Snow and his wonderful assortment of friends, including the great Mungojerrie, voted Koontz's greatest ever character by my two feline friends, Tigger and ...   Read More
Audrianna

Awesomeness
This book was very thrilling. It had me on the edge of my seat. Koontz describes his characters in detail so that you can visualize everything that is going on. This book is a must read, that will make you want to read on. It is definitely a page ...   Read More
mya, 14

Even better then Fear Nothing, and that's a hard book to beat! Can't wait for the final instalment.
jack

awesome book...dean koontz is a great author and i look forward to reading every book

Write your own review!

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Read-Alikes

Read-Alikes Full readalike results are for members only

If you liked Seize The Night, try these:

  • The Passage jacket

    The Passage

    by Justin Cronin

    Published 2011

    About this book

    More by this author

    First, the unthinkable: a security breach at a secret U.S. government facility unleashes the monstrous product of a chilling military experiment. Then, the unspeakable: a night of chaos and carnage gives way to sunrise on a nation, and ultimately a world, forever altered.

  • The Vanished Man jacket

    The Vanished Man

    by Jeffery Deaver

    Published 2004

    About this book

    More by this author

    A brilliant thriller that pits forensic criminologist Lincoln Rhyme and his partner, Amelia Sachs, against an unstoppable killer with one final, horrific trick up his sleeve.

We have 4 read-alikes for Seize The Night, but non-members are limited to two results. To see the complete list of this book's read-alikes, you need to be a member.
More books by Dean Koontz
Search read-alikes
How we choose read-alikes
Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Top Picks

  • Book Jacket: Small Rain
    Small Rain
    by Garth Greenwell
    At the beginning of Garth Greenwell's novel Small Rain, the protagonist, an unnamed poet in his ...
  • Book Jacket: Daughters of Shandong
    Daughters of Shandong
    by Eve J. Chung
    Daughters of Shandong is the debut novel of Eve J. Chung, a human rights lawyer living in New York. ...
  • Book Jacket: The Women
    The Women
    by Kristin Hannah
    Kristin Hannah's latest historical epic, The Women, is a story of how a war shaped a generation ...
  • Book Jacket: The Wide Wide Sea
    The Wide Wide Sea
    by Hampton Sides
    By 1775, 48-year-old Captain James Cook had completed two highly successful voyages of discovery and...

BookBrowse Book Club

Book Jacket
In Our Midst
by Nancy Jensen
In Our Midst follows a German immigrant family’s fight for freedom after their internment post–Pearl Harbor.
Who Said...

Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information on it.

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Wordplay

Big Holiday Wordplay 2024

Enter Now