THIS year, the Mail &Guardian is in agreement with the Boeke Prize verdict. The promotional “award” is given to one of six books selected by Exclusive Books, based on the votes of critics around the country. Last year the M&Gchose Robertson Davies’s last novel The Cunning Man, but in the end the prize went to John Berendt’s Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. For 1996, however, we chose Kate Atkinson’s Behind the Scenes at the Museum (Abacus) – which also topped this year’s final score.