Terry Hayes’s gripping second novel was worth the 10-year wait, while Michael Caine’s first thriller has bags of energy and rises above cliche – plus a creepily compelling tale of reality TV and a cryptic cracker
The writer was on the operating table for cancer, then exactly a year later he found out his nightmarish vision had made the shortlist. He reveals why the words for Prophet Song came out with such urgency, there was no time for paragraph breaks
