Punching at Fog by Rob Silverman

To find yourself, you must be lost.

Pike Graves, a former boxer who suffers thanatophobia—fear of death—has done everything right. Degree from an Ivy League university, respectable job with a reputable newspaper, and always helping others. He wakes up one day to find himself middle-aged with nothing to show for a forgettable and unexciting existence.

He hasn’t been living his life. Instead, his life has been living him.

With nothing and no one, regimented Pike sheds his skin and sets out on a cross-county pilgrimage to reconnect with a long-lost love from high school, Paige Rhodes, the one he believes is his destiny. She’s his last chance at salvation.

To have a future, he must revisit his past.

Back home, his ex-girlfriend learns she’s listed as beneficiary on one of his accounts. She stands to inherit a fortune if he’s killed and promptly enlists the help of a past lover to hunt him down, thereby setting in motion a coast-to-coast pursuit.

As Pike tries to find himself, someone is trying to find him.

Pike learns life is not black and white but rather a gray mosaic. He uncovers truths about himself and his family. Nothing is as he remembers. Nothing is as it seems. The former boxer discovers that oftentimes the most painful blows in life are not the physical ones.

You can win…but still lose.