Michael Hartnett

The Great Sat Swindle: a Novel Featuring More Than 1500 Vocabulary Words in a Tale of Deception & Punishment Michael Hartnett

After Matt Drury earns a perfect score on the SAT, he soon finds himself working for a vast cheating network at his high school, getting paid for services ranging from taking the SAT for classmates with a fake ID to providing social studies homework and test answers for the entire ninth grade. But once inside the cheating network, he encounters corruption, beatings, and even murder. With the help of his oddball friends, Matt soon decides he must expose the network and bring down its nefarious leader, Emil Updike. And he just might be able to, if Updike and the network don't destroy him first. "Michael Hartnett accomplishes what endless vocabulary lists haven't by presenting 1500 challenging words in a classic mystery format complete with detective, sidekick, victim and an assortment of idiosyncratic characters who will certainly resonate with high school readers. The narrator's observations-hilarious poignant and literary- are a blend of high and low comedy and thoroughly engage the reader who anxiously awaits the next outrageous pun, metaphor, malapropism or allusion. "A modern hybrid, The Great Sat Swindle manages to explore key social, psychological and ethical issues facing adolescents while incorporating critical reading and vocabulary skills through dialogue, character, theme and clever footnotes. "With its irreverent satire and authentic voice, The Great SAT Swindle makes mastering vocabulary enjoyable and meaningful." - Estelle Rankin, co-author of 5 Steps to a 5 AP English Literature & McGraw Hill's Writing an Outstanding College Application Essay