Sieze the Night, by Dean R. Koontz

Reviewed by: The Blind Monkey

As many of you know, the Blind Monkey is predisposed to RIP writers with a lack of respect for the english language. Authors like Robin Cook or Clive Cussler, who try to pack punch into flimsy sentence structure by repeatedly going to the Thesaurus for more creative ways to express a point.

The problem is, so few writers truly posses the expanded vocabulary they are trying to pass off as natural in their work. So instead of focusing on gripping plots and believable and well-woven characters, they get caught up in using big fancy words they don’t understand with no regard for context or setting.

Unfortunately, it seems that this strategy of ‘sounding more intelligent than you really are’ is a successful (and obviously lucrative) attempt at impressing the high-paying publishers that promote books to the top of best-seller lists for the simple minded.

I find it depressing. And if you follow the Monkey’s reviews for any length of time, you will find that this is my number ONE complaint with many of the modern writers that we review here at BMR.

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And then we have: Dean R. Koontz. Koontz has such a masterful command of the english language that anyone with an appreciation for how mind-numbingly difficult it is to construct an original sentence will have to periodically put down the pages to gape in awestruck wonder.

I am one of these sorry souls who recognizes that my chosen words never adequately express what I’m trying to say. And when I find a writer that can do this so effortlessly, so cleanly, I have to drop to my knees in a “Waynesque” manner to repeatedly chant “I’M NOT WORTHY!!”

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To prove my point, let’s look at an example from his latest suspense thriller, Seize the Night.

Typical modern writers like Kellerman, Cornwell, or Patterson flagrantly use curse words and obscenities to express everything from anger to excitement to mild interest. Although this is a clear reflection of our times, Koontz achieves the same effect without ever uttering the offense:

“…I heard myself repeating the same four-letter word, as if I had been stricken by a terminal case of Tourette’s syndrome and would spend the rest of my life unable to stop shouting this single obscenity.”

His delivery is so much more clever and subtle that you will read these descriptive phases over and over for sheer entertainment.

Hardcover- 384 pages (December 29, 1998) Bantam Doubleday Dell Pub (Trd); ISBN: 0553106651; Dimensions (in inches): 1.30 x 9.32 x 6.09