Margot Mertz Takes It Down

October 11, 2021
For “teachers, students, parents, and one time a state legislator,” white high school junior Margot Mertz (“Entrepreneur. Tech-curious. Lone wolf”) cleans up “life-destroying” internet errors. The work sometimes puts her into moral gray areas, but since her parents have lost her college fund, she needs the money to pay for college. When a classmate hires Margot to take down a well-designed, password-protected revenge porn website featuring female classmates without their consent, she’s furious at its existence and eager to help. But parlaying her reluctant bond with popular, biracial (Black/white) Avery Green turns up little information from her suspects. And since the victims don’t want any guys involved, she can’t ask her hacker friend Sammi Santos, who’s Dominican American, for a cleanup assist. Married collaborators McCrossen and McWethy don’t pull punches (the victims’ distress, and the fact that no one thinks the school administration will intervene, are realistically rendered), while making Margot a sympathetic, fury-propelled narrator with a winningly noir-inflected voice. Ages 14–up. Agent: For (McCrossen and McWethy) Simon Lipskar, Writers House.