The Suspicions of Mr Whicher: or The Murder at Road Hill House by Kate Summerscale (Bloomsbury) has won the 10th Anniversary BBC FOUR Samuel Johnson Prize for Nonfiction.

Rosie Boycott, chair of the judges, announced the £30,000 (A$61,500) prize at an awards ceremony in London.

Boycott said of the book:
‘Kate Summerscale has brilliantly merged scrupulous archival research with vivid storytelling that reads with the pace of a Victorian thriller.  The book is a rare work of nonfiction that mimics suspense genre and leaves one gripped until the final paragraph. Jack Whicher of Scotland Yard, who became the most celebrated detective of his day, is a complex, shabby character who immediately conjures up images of the scruffy looking LA cop, Columbo and even of Rebus.'

This win makes it two in a row for Bloomsbury with Imperial Life in the Emerald City by Rajiv Chandrasekaran having won the prestigious nonfiction prize in 2007.

http://www.booksellerandpublisher.com.au/articles/2008/07/08939/

This article from Thorpe Bowker's Weekly Book Newsletter and Media Extra is reproduced by kind permission of Thorpe-Bowker, a division of R R Bowker LLC. © Copyright 2008, Thorpe-Bowker

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