Crime Fiction writer up for a Booker?

The six authors on the shortlist for this year's Man Booker Prize are AS Byatt, JM Coetzee, Adam Foulds, Hilary Mantel, Simon Mawer and Sarah Waters.

I thought it worth bringing the announcement of the short list to your attention because not only are there people on the list who have won a Booker before, but it includes a crime fiction writer.

• A S Byatt The Children's Book (Random House, Chatto and Windus)
• J M Coetzee Summertime (Random House, Harvill Secker)
• Adam Foulds The Quickening Maze (Random House, Jonathan Cape)
• Hilary Mantel Wolf Hall (HarperCollins, Fourth Estate)
• Simon Mawer The Glass Room (Little, Brown)
• Sarah Waters The Little Stranger (Little, Brown, Virago)

AS Byatt won the Booker Prize in 1990, JM Coetzee is up for a hat-trick if he wins, and crime fiction author Sarah Waters has not only been short listed twice before, but she's also won the CWA Ellis Peters Dagger Award for Historical Crime Fiction as well as a swag of other awards.

Places to check

• Man Booker Nominees (ABC Blog).
• At a glance: Booker novels on Herald de Paris.
• The short list announcement on the Man Booker site.
• The Booker Dozen - the long list of 13.
• Who will win? - an ABC poll

So have you read any of these? I haven't. What would you recommend or shall I just read the Sarah Waters?

Do you remember who won last year's? I called it crime fiction.