Customer Reviews

Digital Detectives Mysteries #1: Case of the Killer Bugs

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

The basic premise is that to read this book and solve mysteries you must periodically logon to their website. Depending on what happens on the website, you will be given the page number to continue reading the book.

All we get from the website is "http Error 500--Internal Server Error". Can't create a User-ID, can't explore clues, and therefore cannot reasonably continue past page 22 of the book.

Interesting that a failure to maintain a web-server can instantly render useless all previously sold related product (books). I'm not aware of anyone destroying a product-line quite so quickly and easily before (though I'm sure it's happened).

Why did I rate this w/ only 1 star? Maybe because Amazon doesn't offer an option of "Minus 10 stars"...

By the way, you can ping the website and get a decent turnaround time (about 150 to 170 milliseconds for us), but don't be mislead--it appears they are continuing to have catastrophic and unrecoverable problems w/ their server.

Oh, one more thing. I clicked on their "contact support" link and sent an e-mail describing the problems. The e-mail bounced back: their support e-address is no longer working (I presume it did at some time).

So, don't waste your time (or your parent's/children's time). Until this site has been up and running succesfully for at least 6 months to a year, I wouldn't trust it.

Needless to say, just my humble opinion...

This series of mysteries (Digital Detectives) requires that you read part of the story, picking up clues and information. Then you are to go to the books website to search for more clues and directions on how to solve the mystery and proceed with your reading in the book. ONE BIG PROBLEM.. the WEB SITE IS NOT FUNCTIONING....IT's NOT AVAILABLE..
For the last month we have been trying to access the website...but no response... Numerous contacts with the publisher have been met with empty promises.. Yes, we are aware of the problem. Yes, someone is looking into it. Yes, we will have the technical problems worked out by next week...hopefully. And that was close to a month ago. Still no functioning website. My words of advice about this series...don't buy it! The publisher is not supporting the website, and without the website, the mystery is dead in the water.

This book is really awesome! The web scenes are so fun. I can't wait to get Digital Detectives #2.

I brought this book home to my child hoping that it would inspire him to read. He loves playing on the computer but does not spend enough time reading books in my opinion. This book did the trick. Once I explained the concept to him he was very excited to start reading. I am online right now to purchase the other book in the series for him. What took someone so long to come up with this idea?

This book is really cool. It's a mystery about a computer game with a bug. But, I get to decide who put the virus in the game by looking for clues on the Web site. It's really fun!

Both my 8 year old son and my 11 year old daughter found "The Case of the Killer Bugs" to be "neat and fun". This new concept of reading and solving the mystery on-line kept my children enthralled for hours. I look forward to purchasing the next book, "When Nightmares Come True". These books will be great stocking stuffers for all my nieces and nephews because the cost is so low. I hope the Digital Detective Mysteries become a series so I can collect all of them for my children. Montavon keep them coming!

My son was given this book, and was horribly disappointed. He can't actually USE the book since the website that tells you what page to turn to is no longer maintained. You still get a sort of dummy site, but clicking on the book title (or anything on the site) gives you unwanted search results or ads. All the great reviews are from years ago when the site presumably still existed. Too bad.

My daughter received this book for free at a school function. She was really excited about it and started reading right away. On page 22 you have to log on to a website that no longer exists in order to figure out what page to read next.

She is SO disappointed. STAY AWAY from this book. I've done a lot of research and have found all kinds of complaints that the website is GONE and has been for MANY years.

Don't waste your time.

It is a shame; I went to the link given in the book and couldn't find the book or the claimed log in. Other than that the book has a pretty good plot

about kids solving a computer crime of pirating and a virus.

It was so right on about how petty people can be in the high tech world.

Sort of Animal Farm with the pigs being over age delinquents.

Computers really weren't originally made for games or making music either.

These kids are in the era before the first Internet bust...

This is a very cool story because you can read and play the computer at the same time.