Rating: 
Summary: Who said pastiche was dead.
Review: Buy it, buy it now! This book has had me cackling with laughter every time I pick it upIt stands out as a fantastic example to others of how to write pastiche, particularly of thrillers with a "technical" angle. From the first page Deaver mercilessly sends up not only his own genre, but the world of the geek, if you know any geeks get them to read this now. Scarcely a page is turned without another piece of techno-babble or ancient myth being trotted out (totally straight faced) as fact (Owning a "Winchester" disk signifies the technical savvy of one character and the baddie uses a virus that make your hardware explode, etc). A smattering of vaguely accurate technical detail is diluted with gallons of myth and pure invention, some of it absolutely sidesplitting. Our hero does fingertip pushups so he can type faster, in fact so fast, he breaks several keyboards in a single coding session! His skill with code makes him sexually attractive to female geeks! The list is endless. A couple of the jokier references had to be explained later in the book which I found a bit unsubtle (First victim is Laura Gibson....), but for the most part Deaver doesn't bat an eyelid when it comes to straight faced send ups. I wish he had spent more time sending up the thriller angle rather than just relying on more fomulaic "plot devices" to give us a laugh, but I guess it's been done too often before. The real scream is in the technical side. If it hadn't been written by such a popular author I would have thought this to be just an abyssmally bad attempt at exploiting a new angle on the thriller novel (though equally funny), but therein lies the skill of it. I think it speaks highly of the authors skill and versatility.
Rating:
Summary: Deaver never disappoints
Review: This was a great book, a roller coaster ride of a thriller with surprising and unexpected twists at every chapter. You think you know who the bad guys are; you think you know what's coming up, but Deaver only fools you into thinking you know the answers .... and that is the talent of a really entertaining author who pulls you into the story.
I guarantee, when you finish this book, you will never look at computers or the internet in quite the same naive way. Two thumbs up for this one both for the quality of the storyline and the atypical venue of the computer world where the action unfolds. I have never been disappointed by any of Deaver's novel's. Highly recommended.
Rating: 
Summary: Eh!
Review: Wyatt Gillette is a computer hacker serving a three-year sentence for his transgressions. He is recruited by the Computer Crimes Unit to try to find a serial killer hacker who goes by the name of Phate. Phate is a computer wizard who knows everything there is to know about cyberspace and then more. He uses his skills to track overconfident computer users and leading them to a trap. Once he has them snared Phate slices and dices his victims with his trusty knife. What makes him even more powerful is his cohort-in-crime, Shawn. Shawn can be almost anywhere tracking every source of information and sending it to Phate. This accomplice's identity is kept secret throughout the book until the shocking showdown between Wyatt and Shawn. The book is full of twists and turns and makes for an entertaining read but that is about it. The material in the novel is very dated making it difficult to reprint in the near future with the way technology evolves. The book makes an OK beach read but there are better Jeffery Deaver novels. Try THE DEVIL'S TEARDROP, A MAIDEN'S GRAVE, or HELL'S KITCHEN.
Rating: 
Summary: Total Waste of Time
Review: Now I remember why I quit reading Jeffery Deaver. In my opinion, this book was not a mystery, but a boring dissertation on computers. I read it because it was so highly recommended but could hardly wait until I was finally finished. Too predictable for me.
Rating:
Summary: Worth reading.
Review: I enjoyed this novel,but it's plot was not as strong as some of Deaver's previous novels (such as The Bone Collector).Despite the fact that I'm no computer genius or addict,I found the novel to be interestingly different.The novel picks up pace towards the end. The outcomes keep you guessing,as what you expect to happen dissolves into something else.This is definately a novel for anyone interested in the power,influence or security of technology in the world. The plot revolves around two computer hackers,one evil and one on the trail, working with the police.The downside is that some aspects of the novel seem far-fetched or out of place.Without a doubt the ending will surprise.
Rating:
Summary: Worth Reading.
Review: I enjoyed this novel,but it's plot was not as strong as some of Deaver's previous novels (such as The Bone Collector).Despite the fact that I'm no computer genius or addict,I found this book to be interestingly different.The novel really picks up pace towards the end. The outcomes of the plot keep you guessing,as what you expect to happen dissolves into something else.This is definately a novel for anyone interested in the power,influence or security of technology in the world. The plot very much revolves around two computer hackers,one evil and one working with the police.The down side of it all is that some aspects of the novel seem a little far-fetched or out of place.Without a doubt the ending will surprise.
Rating:
Summary: Best Novel I Have Read
Review: This cyber-thriller wasn't much to me until one fateful day at the airport. I picked it up, and read it non-stop all through-out my 11 hour flight from SFO to France. I must say that I am extremely impressed by the terminology and the accuracy that Jeffery Deaver has put into this book. He has done great research, and it shows. The characters are a little under-developed, but the plot twists kept me guessing! A great read, you MUST buy this!
Rating:
Summary: Ending does not disappoint......
Review: Don't you hate it when you take hours of your precious time to read a book and the ending is really bad? I find this happening to me a lot when I read fiction. But, not in this case. I loved this book. I could not put it down and I am sad that I finished it. This one was right up my alley as I have been using computers since the days of DOS and BBS'es (pre-Internet). The author got his facts straight and even taught me a thing or two. But, most of all, he wrote a book that was totally inrtiguing, expecially for people who love computers and the "nowhere" place we go when we log on and sign in..... All the lost hours.... When you shut off your machine, pick up this book......
Rating: 
Summary: Predictable. Poorly researched. Seventh-grade level style.
Review: Deaver my be able to lead novices into thinking that this story had something to do with real computer crime, but it didn't even pass the lowest standards of techncial knowledge of how cracking into systems really works, not to mention what you can and cannot do to a machine remotely over the Internet. Let's get some things straight: 1) You cannot "rename your domain name" instantaniously like, rename CCU's domain to "caltourism.com". This would involve a third party registrar to update the root nameservers, which would take days to propagate fully. Furthermore, if CCU were an "autonomous system" (AS), it would take a lot longer yet, and require the approval of many parties, including ARIN. 2) A program that can find a user's actual computer online via their email address (Phate's cutsie Trapdoor program) would be so tedious to write, with so many complex, boring testcases for difficult-to-reproduce situations that I doubt anyone with the supposed talent to write such a program would be interested in wasting so much time in doing it. Solving the problems that Trapdoor would face prior to even connecting to the user's computer are about 10x the complexity of exploiting the weaknesses of the target computer itself. Crackers get their kicks in different ways than that. 3) Crackers do not write menu-driven applications. It's a waste of time for them. There were many, many more technical sillinesses that aren't worth going into. Most importantly, Deaver, pulling hysterics, would have us believe that we are taking our lives in our hands by using a computer. Nonsense. Always remember computer crime is about stealing information. Period. It's not about killing people or raping women or otherwise bringing bodily harm to the masses. If you don't store information that you can't afford to lose on your computer, then the worst thing you have to lose from a cracker is a little bit of time it takes to reinstall your system and apply the appropriate security updates. You have backups don't you? If not, you have more common problems than computer crime facing you in the future.
Rating:
Summary: WHO KNOWS WHAT EVIL LURKS INSIDE YOUR COMPUTER?
Review: Jeffery Deaver has come up with a real thriller here that will not only keep you up much too late at night, but also keep you offline as far as your computer is concerned. The plot is simple: a computer "wizard" known as Phate has come up with a "daemon" or hidden computer program that allows him to take over the computers of ordinary "citizens" like you and me and manipulate their lives and lead them to their deaths. (If you don't understand the "codeslinger" lingo, Deaver provides a three-page glossary at the start of the book to bring you up to code.) Anyway, to stop this computer killer the CCU (The Computer Crimes Unit of the California State Police) has come up with their own "wizard", Wyatt Gillette who just happens to be doing time in prison for doing some hacking of his own. Like some gigantic real-life computer game, Phate seems to be in complete control - even going so far as to brutally and blatantly murder a member of the CCU team trying to capture him. It's a race against time, and Phate is using every computer skill that he has in order to delay and misdirect his pursuers. Deaver has written a book with well-developed and interesting characters. And even if you know less about computers than I do, (which happens to be next to nothing) this tale will keep you turning pages as fast as you can, and by the time you finish the book you'll realize that you even learned a bit about how the computer world works. This one really earned my top rating, even if it did keep me from turning my iMac on for a while..
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