The Barnes & Noble ReviewFollowing a string of blockbusters over the past several years, including Watchers and Intensity, Dean Koontz embarked on what was a bit of an experiment for a bestselling writer — to take a character and fully explore his life through the mechanism of the thriller. Koontz's first foray in this realm was last year's Fear Nothing, a sort of coming-of-age suspense story set against the nighttime world of Christopher Snow, the novel's young protagonist. The second installment in Snow's saga, Seize the Night, finds him older, wiser, and rougher around the edges. Seize the Night is a better novel than Fear Nothing and represents Koontz's maturation into a first-rate novelist of the 20th century who's looking ahead to the 21st. Dean Koontz is one of those big bestselling writers people either love or hate, but few have ever not read at least one of his novels. He has an enormous fan base and has written tons of novels — some up there with the best of popular fiction, and some simply good reads with strong story lines. He was cutting his teeth on writing various kinds of fiction, from science fiction to gothic to suspense to comedy, for years before he hit big with his first bestsellers. As a result, these influences seeped into his fiction — but he offered up more. Koontz is one of the few novelists writing today who manages to combine a strong humanistic thread with a spiritual sense and still write a crackling-good thriller. All this is a preface to my take on Seize the Night. It is Koontz's best novel. All right, I'llqualifythis. It's not his most frightening, it's not his wildest roller-coaster ride, and it's not his most experimental. It is solid fiction, truly beautiful writing, and a journey that involves getting to know a human being completely, both his terror and his joy. With Seize the Night,