Lynn Coady: Plastic Explosives

Jazz Musician Dept: Both were named to a short list of six contenders for the $50,000 award: The Free World by David Bezmozgis. The Antagonist by Lynn Coady. The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt. Half-Blood Blues by Esi Edugyan. Better Living Through Plastic Explosives by Zsuzsi Gartner. The Cat's Table by Michael Ondaatje, according to CBC. DeWitt's The Sisters Brothers portrays two cowboy assassins tasked with tracking down a gold prospector. "DeWitt has thrown the western up in the air and brought it down new and strange and ferociously alive," the jury said in its citation and the release of the Scotiabank Giller Prize short list on Tuesday brought fresh accolades for new writers Esi Edugyan and Patrick deWitt. Half-Blood Blues , the story of a black musician in Nazi Germany, is a second novel for Victoria-based Edugyan. The jury praised her conversational style, saying "any jazz musician would be happy to play the way Edugyan writes." (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.