British writer Ian McEwan looks set to become the third double winner of one of contemporary fiction's most sought after trophies, the Man Booker prize.
This year's sedate shortlist which was announced in London yesterday succeeded in being somewhat more exciting than last month's long list - possibly because the more fancied runners, including Ireland's Anne Enright, survived to make the final six.
Enright's inclusion with The Gathering, a confident, vivid account of nine members of a dysfunctional clan meeting up in Dublin for the funeral of their brother, yet again confirms the enduring appeal of families at war.
Enright has consistently demonstrated that she is a shrewd observer of people. The Gatheringwith its echoes of Roddy Doyle's The Woman Who Walked into Doorsoffers a believable look at contemporary Ireland.
McEwan's On Chesil Beachis a touching account of exactly how badly wrong young love is capable of going. Although dissenting voices have suggested that it is more novella than novel, it looks set to take the prize, providing it can hold off the challenge of two very different novels, each shaped by great writers of the past.
This year's judging panel has proved its worth by selecting Mohsin Hamid's insightful second novel, The Reluctant Fundamentalist.
Published some weeks before Don De Lillo's Falling Man, Hamid's novel looks at the new plague, international terrorism. It is a daring, intelligent performance inspired by Camus.
It is a novel for our dark times and although the love theme is a weakness, there is much to be learnt from Hamid's committed, intuitive novel.
Another challenge to shortlist veteran McEwan who won a weak Booker in 1998 with Amsterdam, an engaging though slight romantic comedy is New Zealander Lloyd Jones whose Mister Piplooks to none other than Charles Dickens. Jones is the author of six novels.
In fairness to former Impac winner Nicola Barker whose Darkmansat more than 800 pages left many a reviewer sighing, and to Indra Sinha's well regarded Animals's People, they may well be forgotten in the skirmish.