The law asks what a reasonable, prudent man would do. It never warns you how few of them you'll meet.

He never wanted to be a lawyer. But the debt was mounting and nothing else had stuck, and law school was the last ripcord left to pull - so Christian pulled it, graduating at the top of a class he couldn't stand, straight into a profession that promised to finally make him someone.

What it makes him, first, is a young man adrift between two Kentuckys. In a fog-smothered Appalachian town, a cigar-smoking judge shows him that the law runs on common sense, not citations, and a landlocked surfer named Jesse shows him something harder to name. Then the big firm calls. Christian trades the quiet for Fentz - its kill-or-be-killed corridors, a charismatic partner who takes him under his wing, and a woman he can't decide whether to trust. By the time he understands the game being played around him, he's the one left holding the blame.

Wry, propulsive, and sharply observed, The Reasonable Prudent Man is a story about ambition and the bill it quietly runs up - about what it actually costs to live reasonably, and where a person finds the people worth coming home to.

For readers of smart, voice-driven literary fiction about work, integrity, and the long way back to yourself.