FEAR NOTHING

　　Christopher Snow is the best-known resident of 12,000-strongMoonlight Bay, California. This is because 28-year-old Chris hasxeroderma pigmentosum (XP)--a light-sensitivity so severe that hecannot leave his house in daylight, cannot enter a normally-litroom, cannot sit at a computer. Chris's natural element is thenight, and his parents, both academics, chose to live in MoonlightBay because in a small town Chris can make the nightscape hisown--roaming freely through the town on his bike, surfing in themoonlight, exploring while most people sleep. But Chris's brilliantmother, a scientist, was killed in a car accident 2 years ago, andas the book opens his father, Steven Snow, is dying of cancer;Chris's protected life is about to change forever. We meet Chris ashe is carefully preparing himself to go out in the late-afternoonsun to visit the hospital. In his last moments of life his fathertells Chris he is "sorry" and that Chris should "fearnothing"--cryptic words that Chris cannot really relate to. StevenSnow's body is removed to the hospital basement for transport tothe funeral home/crematorium, and when Chris goes downstairs for afinal moment of farewell, he witnesses a frightening andclandestine encounter: the funeral director and another man Chrisdoesn't recognize are substituting the body of a hitchhiker forSteven Snow's body-which is being taken not to the crematorium butto some secret destination. For Chris, this scene is the firstintimation of a conspiracy that he will come to realize envelopesmany of his townspeople. His parents knew of it and wanted toprotect Chris from it. His best friend has had hints of somethingwrong because of the frightening nocturnal visitors that have cometo his beachhouse. And the first person to try to explain to Chriswhat's going on--and warn him about the special danger he himselfis in--will be hideously murdered. In the 24 hours this bookencompasses, Christopher Snow will find out that, sheltered thoughhe's been, he has the soul of a fighter and an adventurer. By theend of the book he will have killed a man, will have discovered therole his own mother played in the birth of the conspiracy, willhave come to recognize the extraordinary guardians that, unknown tohim, have watched over him for years. He will realize that somepeople hate him, others revere him, and neither his own life northose of anyone he knows will ever be the same.