The Internet Escapade

Casebusters #11

by Joan Lowery Nixon

When an Internet prank turns serious, Sean becomes the main suspect

Bored in computer class, Sean Quinn and his friend Matt decide to liven things up with a little computer prank. But the laughs stop quickly when they accidentally hurt a younger student’s feelings, earning themselves a quick trip to the principal’s office. That night, Sean receives an anonymous email praising him for the prank, and promising to avenge his punishment by causing trouble at the school. The next day, a virus wreaks havoc with the school computers, and the principal suspects Sean of being the mastermind! To keep himself out of trouble, Sean asks his brother Brian to help him find the hacker behind the anonymous email. Catching criminals in the real world is tough enough, but when a crook decides to hide behind the computer screen, it will take every trick in the Casebusters’ arsenal to bring this cyber-thug to real-world justice.

Genres: Fiction

86 pages, ebook

First published January 1, 1997

About the author

Author of more than one hundred books, Joan Lowery Nixon is the only writer to have won four Edgar Allan Poe Awards for Juvenile Mysteries (and been nominated several other times) from the Mystery Writers of America. Creating contemporary teenage characters who have both a personal problem and a mystery to solve, Nixon captured the attention of legions of teenage readers since the publication of her first YA novel more than twenty years ago. In addition to mystery/suspense novels, she wrote nonfiction and fiction for children and middle graders, as well as several short stories. Nixon was the first person to write novels for teens about the orphan trains of the nineteenth century. She followed those with historical novels about Ellis Island and, more recently for younger readers, Colonial Williamsburg. Joan Lowery Nixon died on June 28, 2003—a great loss for all of us.