Escape Key

Internet Detectives #2

by Michael Coleman

Once they altered the features of the face on the computer screen, they knew they had their man.

The photograph, flashed instantly from Australia via the Internet, sends Rob, Tamsyn, and Josh on a thrilling hunt for a man wanted by the police on two continents.  Rob and Tamsyn have seen him once in person, but they've no idea where he is now.  With the help of brilliant detective work by their friends on the Net, they start to track down their mysterious suspect...

Genres: Mystery, Contemporary, Childrens

128 pages, Paperback

First published July 12, 1996

About the author

Coleman was born in Forest Gate, a suburb in east London. Not long after he was born, his family moved a few miles east to Barking. At the time of his arrival, the area was just starting to recover from the damage it had received during World War II. He lived in a house on Bevan Avenue, named after Aneurin Bevan the architect of the National Health Service. He lived in that estate for 20 years. The area helped develop Coleman's love of sport due to the oblong shaped lanes of grass leading up the estate, which could be used as mini-stadiums. He pretended to play at various sporting events of the time, e.g. the Melbourne Olympics of 1956, the soccer Cup Final at Wembley Stadium, and the games at Lords Cricket ground. He still has medals he won for being school champion in the 100m sprint and the long jump. As said by Coleman himself "My information series Foul Football tries to convey some of the magic I felt about the game of soccer by relating the weird and wonderful history of the game and the personalities it has seen over the years. On the fiction side, my series about a junior soccer team called Angels FC tries to bring out the humour and sheer fun that you’ll find at the heart of the game when it’s played by youngsters who don’t even know how to spell the word cynicism." Coleman had his first children’s book published when he was 46 years of age. He has also said: "I didn't [want to become a writer] at first. I used to teach computer science at a university and my first book was a boring one about computers. I livened it up by putting a few jokes in. At the end I thought I'd try writing a few more things, but this time forgetting about the computers and concentrating on the jokes. After lots of failures I realised that youngsters enjoy jokes more than adults and started writing for them. Eighty books later, I'm still doing it...I write both fact and fiction. The Foul Football series are favourite fact books, simply because they're about football. On the fiction side, I'm just finishing a trilogy called The Bearkingdom. They're dark and scary, quite different to anything I've written before."

Reviews

[Basil · Rating 3 out of 5]

I highly recommend this book solely for the unintentional humour value. Many parts are flat-out unrealistic, but even stuff that at one time (the 90s) made sense are now hilariously outdated. I read several passages out loud to a friend of mine and we were both in tears. My favourite part might just be when the kids use MSPaint to shoop up a photo of the bad guy and we are treated to screenshots of the whole process. No, wait, when one of the kids needs to email his friend a news photo, so he buys a newspaper, scans it, puts the scan on a diskette, searches for a usable computer, then finally emails it. (This process takes him the better part of a day.)

[Rachel · Rating 2 out of 5]

I've had this book for years, and I've even read it once or twice. I enjoyed it, even though it was still clearly outdated 15 years ago when I originally read it. A simple mystery tale and a flashback to the past to the late 90s and a testament to how far technology has come.

I didn't finish it this time because I simply got too bored. I tossed it into a library donation bin.

[Lightwhisper · Rating 5 out of 5]

Li a versão portuguesa Tecla de Escape da Editora Gradiva e senti-me a ler um livro de ficção científica, pois parecia-me algo já tão longe da realidade, que se não tivesse vivido essa era, não acreditava que fosse verdade.. ao que me traz um certo saudosismo e será um livro para guardar como parte da História da humanidade.

[Chiara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rob Zanelli and Tamsyn Smith go to the airport to fetch Rob's dad from a flight which is delayed by a storm in the Atlantic ocean. They play a game of I spy and find a man that they try to guess where he is from. When they find two cards inside the jacket in the bin they find that it is from two people. They turn it over and find that it belongs to ChecKMate. The guys name is Kelvin Moore who has gone short of money and is trying to pay tax. They try to catch him because he is wanted for the police and is always in another spot at another time. Then a chess game is taking place with Georgi Borzov when Josh, who can't give Lauren a decent game goes forward to play against the greatest chess player in the world.

[Rogerio · Rating 2 out of 5]

Book 2 wasn't so fun as book 1 and it is more about using e-mail and internet functions to bust a crook. I think you will smile if you were using computers in 1996. I think the highlight is the first Chess games which people tried to beat, as well as using graphic packages to edit pictures which was a hit in those years. Think of Corel Draw...

[All Mota · Rating 2 out of 5]

Fue entretenido, me causo risa la tecnología mostrada, recordando que este libro fue escrito en 1997, antes que yo naciera, pero normalmente estos tipos de libros noventeros me entretienen durante toda la lectura, y este simplemente me aburrió, aun así tiene partes buenas.

[luu · Rating 3 out of 5]

amo este libro, lo asocio a un sentimiento extraño, no sé, leerlo por primera vez fue tan lindo, los diferentes lugares, la historia.
por alguna razón me imaginaba a emma watson actuando de tamsyn lol.

[Deb the Reading Bee · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book's Serbian translation titled "Beg s mreže".