And the Costa Prize winner is…

… Pure, by Andrew Miller. Miller’s novel was not even longlisted by the Booker Prize panel, so perhaps this is another example of the Costas righting literary wrongs: a tradition for which it is growing famous. Miller saw off tough competition from the Poet Laureate, Carol Ann Duffy, and from Matthew Hollis’s atypical and brilliant life of Edward Thomas, All Roads Lead to France, more of which later.