Booker Prize / Maxliu / 08 September 2009 /

The ape is out and, the ommitance of William Trevor and Colm Toibin aside, this is the 'serious' Booker shortlist we wanted. But where should you put your money?

I hope JM Coetzee becomes the first writer to win the Booker Prize prize three times. But I don't expect him to.

The South African Nobel laureate, who you should be able to back at around [5.0] when the Betfair market goes live, is shorlisted for Summertime - the beguiling third instalment in his excellent trilogy of fictional memoir - and if betting on the Booker was only a case of backing the best, I'd recommend you get on Coetzee now.

However, Summertime is exercising a mysterious hold over its reviewers, who have relinquished their usual middle-brow reservations and seem oddly cowed by the book's complexity, willing only to discuss rather than make judgements. Quite right, but I still don't see the judges giving Coetzee his hat-trick.

Hilary Mantel has been left flustered by the bookies making her their favourite. I never had the author of Wolf Hall down as the betting shop type but her long historical novel, in which she imagines the life of Thomas Cromwell, a 16th-century Alastair Campbell, has proved a big hit with punters.

You can expect odds of around [2.0] on Wolf Hall, which is too short in a six-strong field with a history of surprises. Remember, last year's winner, the White Tiger, was trading at around [5.0] at this stage while favourite Sea of Poppies was down to [1.66]. However, anything over [2.0] on Mantel, warrants a small stake.

Sarah Waters The Little Stranger, a chilling, supernatural meditation on the British class system, has been dubbed "the winner at the tills" but these judges aren't the populist types and odds of around [5.9] should be avoided.

You'd be better off backing A.S Byatt's The Childrens Book at a similar price. Byatt was a deserved winner for Possession in 1990 and this is her best book since then. I'll be putting my money on the 73-year-old if I can get [6.0] or above.

Adam Foulds would make a more exciting winner and after Coetzee he's the writer I want to win. At only 34-years-old, Foulds is already in the winning habit, having scooped, amongst other awards, the Costa Poetry Prize last year. It may sound far-fetched but certain writers' work speaks to awards judges. Foulds is one such and The Quickening Maze, his fictional exploration of poetry, madness and identity through the life of John Clare, makes a lively bet at around [12.0].

The real outsider here is Simon Mawer's the Glass Room, a novel of ideas driven by the century-long story of a house and a country. It should enter the market at around [12.0] - anything there and above is worth a small wager.

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