Short, sharp guidance and observations from a journalist with attitude. All books available from Exclusives

IF YOU READ ONE THING THIS WEEK

Dust Devils, by Roger Smith (Serpent's Tail) R130

CAPETONIAN Roger Smith is emerging as our most hard-boiled crime writer, with a unique ability to grab readers by the throat and plunge them headlong into the maelstrom unfolding in the clipped prose of his nightmare visions.

Here, lefty journalist Robert Dell teams up with his worst enemy - his father, a former CIA spook who once worked as an apartheid killer - in a bloody, hair-raising revenge tale.

THE ISSUE

Julian Barnes's The Sense of an Ending has emerged as the bookies' favourite to win this year's Man Booker Prize, with Ladbrokes giving it odds of 13/8 and William Hill 6/4 - which has pleased The Times of London columnist Giles Coren no end.

Earlier this month, Coren predicted that Barnes would be a strong contender to win the prize and that the then-favourite, Alan Hollinghurst's The Stranger's Child, be disregarded altogether.

And lo, when the shortlist was announced last week, Hollinghurst was duly dumped and Barnes installed as leader of the pack.

"I hope you got your money on when I told you to," Coren crowed on Saturday.

"Don't forget that last year I called Howard Jacobson at the longlist stage too. Literary fiction: the only way to make money out of it is to bet on it."

Cheeky chappie. But here's how the rest of the field stands (odds from Ladbrokes first, then William Hill): Carol Birch's Jamrach's Menagerie - 7/2, 7/2; AD Miller's Snowdrops - 7/2, 5/1; Stephen Kelman's Pigeon English - 9/2, 6/1; Esi Edugyan's Half Blood Blues - 13/2, 6/1; and Patrick de Witt's The Sisters Brothers - 8/1, 7/1.

CRASH COURSE

This sort of thing always happens. Since last week's column, a number of authors have cancelled appearances at Cape Town's inaugural Open Book Literary Festival.

According to festival co-ordinator Frankie Murrey, the publication of Jeanette Winterson's autobiography has been delayed, so she won't be in town to launch the book; JMG Le Clézio, Patrick Ness and David McCandless have also cancelled appearances for various reasons. On the positive side, though, John Crace, Julie Myerson, NoViolet Bulawayo and Ricky Burdett swell the ranks of the festival's international attractions.

Local stars include Hanlie Retief, Mike Nicol, Peter Harris, Imraan Coovadia, Henriette Rose-Innes, Denis Hirson, Christopher Hope, Michiel Heyns . . . the list is endless.

See www.openbookfestival.co.za for updates and more information.

THE BOTTOM LINE

"For the majority of Muslims today, the central issue is not a clash with other civilisations. It is instead a struggle within the faith itself to rescue Islam's central values from a small but virulent minority. The new confrontation is effectively a jihad against the Jihad." - Rock the Casbah: Rage and Rebellion Across the Islamic World, by Robin Wright (Simon & Schuster)

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