The Substitution Order A novel

A NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS’ CHOICE

Kevin Moore, once a high-flying Virginia attorney, hits rock bottom after a tumultuous summer leaves him disbarred and separated from his wife. Short on cash and looking for work, he lands in the middle of nowhere with a job at SUBstitution, the world’s saddest sandwich shop. His closest confidants: a rambunctious rescue puppy and the twenty-year-old computer whiz manning the restaurant counter beside him.

Kevin’s determined to set his life right again, but the troubles keep coming, including a visit from a mysterious stranger who wanders into the shop armed with a threatening “invitation” to join a multimillion-dollar scam. Before long, Kevin will need every bit of his legal savvy just to stay out of prison.

In The Substitution Order, Martin Clark—hailed by Entertainment Weekly as “hands down our best legal-thriller writer”—takes readers on a remarkable tour of the law’s tricks and hidden trapdoors and delivers a wildly entertaining novel that will keep you guessing and rooting for its tenacious hero until the very last page.

Martin Clark is a retired Virginia circuit court judge who served twenty-seven years on the bench. His novels have appeared on several best-seller lists and have been chosen as a New York Times Notable Book, a Washington Post Book World Best Book of the Year, a Bookmarks Magazine Best Book of the Year, a Boston Globe Best Book of the Year, a Book of the Month Club selection, a finalist for the Stephen Crane Award for First Fiction, and the winner of the Library of Virginia’s People’s Choice Award in 2009 and 2016. He received the Patrick County Outstanding Community Service Award in 2016 and the Virginia State Bar’s Harry L. Carrico Professionalism Award in 2018. Martin’s wife, Deana, is a photographer, and they live on a farm with dogs, cats, chickens, guinea fowl, and three donkeys.