QUIRK: There's another Quirk on the scene though - Matthew Quirk, whose The 500 debuted in the spring, is somebody to keep your eye on. The story revolves around a con-man recruited into an uber-powerful lawfirm dedicated to protecting (and exploiting) the secrets of the 1%'s 1% in Washington D.C. And if capital-city legal thrillers are for you, check out Mike Lawson's House Blood for outing number seven with Joe DeMarco in the weeds. It's about corruption and stuff, what else do you need?

QUIRK: But for my money, when looking for quirk, you just can’t beat Greg Bardsley. I’ve been reading this cat for years now – I've aggressively suggested – nay, begged, demanded (I can be pushy, I know it, but I’m not apologizing) for you to check him out. He writes stories of reasonable men caught in surreally odd situations with characters that would make David Lynch squirm. Like Lynch he deals with what lies beneath – though, he's much funnier. When you read his debut novel Cash Out this fall, you’ll be looking at that lawn outside your window, that garage across the street, the eccentric neighbor down the block with a social blind-spot – the awkward self-possession, the public peccadillo, the… quirk – and you'll have to admit - Bardsley took your cake, ate it too, and then did untoward things with it.

Jedidiah Ayres writes fiction and keeps the blog Hardboiled Wonderland.