Stef Penney Wins British Prize

$49K Costa Award Goes to 'Tenderness of Wolves' Author

LONDON, Feb. 7 -- A thriller set in Canada and written by an agoraphobic British novelist who had never visited the country was named winner of the lucrative Costa Book of the Year Award on Wednesday.

Stef Penney won the $49,000 prize for her first novel, "The Tenderness of Wolves." Penney had already won the awards' first-novel category for the murder mystery, which takes place in an isolated northern Ontario outpost in 1867.

Penney, 37, has said she developed agoraphobia after leaving college and could not travel to Canada to do research. Instead, she studied maps and texts in the British Library, near her London home.

Television writer Armando Iannucci, who chaired the judging panel, praised Penney's "extraordinary" work.

"Approaching it from the outside, not knowing anything about Canada from the 1860s, I remember sitting down starting this book thinking, 'What has this got to say to me?' " he said. "Within about 50 pages, I was completely in love with it."

The Costas -- known until last year as the Whitbread Book Awards -- were established in 1971 and are Britain's longest-running literary competition. They are open to residents of Britain and the Republic of Ireland.

The prizes are awarded in five categories -- novel, first novel, poetry, biography and children's book -- with each winner receiving $9,700. One of the five takes the book of the year title.

The other category winners, announced last month, were British novelist William Boyd for "Restless," a story of love and espionage during World War II; Brian Thompson for his childhood memoir, "Keeping Mum"; poet John Haynes for "Letter to Patience"; and children's author Linda Newbery for "Set in Stone."

The awards were renamed last year after sponsorship switched from the retail and leisure group Whitbread Group PLC to the Costa coffee shop chain.