After three months of literary debate and high-jinks the public vote is in and the judges have decided. This year’s Guardian mug goes to Fishnet by Kirstin Innes

Let’s have no ado at all. We have a winner: Fishnet by Kirstin Innes.

Our judges split their individual votes three ways, but with two votes from the popular vote and one vote from the judges, Fishnet emerged as a clear winner.

Here’s how things broke down. In the online round, eligible votes stood at:

Fishnet by Kirstin Innes: 135

Things We Have In Common by Tasha Kavanagh: 126

The Good Son by Paul McVeigh: 115

The Artificial Anatomy Of Parks by Kat Gordon: 71

Shame by Melanie Finn: 25

A Moment More Sublime by Stephen Grant: 17

Dark Star by Oliver Langmead: 8

Statistically this meant that Fishnet carried two votes through to the judging round. Morally, the three top books were incredibly close. A lot depended on the judges’ decision. I was worried that I might even have to use my casting vote – and wasn’t keen to do so, since I couldn’t choose between the three top books.



I’d have been happy to see any one win. At the risk of trotting out a worn cliche, I have to say that it’s a shame that they can’t all be winners – the public vote provided an excellent top three. In fact, each novel on our shortlist this year had something to recommend it. There wasn’t a stinker among them, and there was a lot of very impressive writing.

But, of course, a decision did have to be made. Fortunately, we had three excellent judges to do the job. In the event, Benjamin Judge opted for Shame, Alexandra Masters opted for The Good Son and Lorraine Berry for Fishnet. This meant that Fishnet had three votes out of five and my life was considerably easier. We had a winner – and one that everyone could agree to be an excellent choice.

Fishnet is a fine novel. It possibly wasn’t the most polished and complete literary work on the list, but there is some excellent writing in there, as well as real emotional and political urgency. It’s gripping, it’s humane and it’s the kind of novel that can actually make you investigate your own prejudices and opinions. I know it challenged a few of my ideas about prostitution and the vulnerability (or otherwise) of sex workers. When I wrote about it earlier, I even said that I thought it was important. Immediately afterwards, I had a pang of doubt. Had I gone too far? Can a novel like this one really make a difference?

Now that a few weeks have passed and I’ve seen the reactions of other readers to the book, I’d stand by those words. It’s a book that really moves people and really makes them think. It feels like a novel that has the potential to make a difference to a lot of lives – if only enough people read it. Hopefully this victory will help to make that possible. I hope that this book is spread far and wide – and I’m proud to have been involved in a prize that can ignite that process.

I’m looking forward to 2016’s competition already.

The 2015 Not the Booker prize judges

Alexandra Masters

Benjamin Judge

Lorraine Berry