Catholic Church corruption story wins top Canada prize

(The Scotiabank Giller Prize)

Canada's top literary award for fiction, the Scotiabank Giller Prize, has gone to journalist Linden MacIntyre for his novel about corruption in the Catholic Church, the jury announced Wednesday.

The 66-year-old veteran investigative reporter and co-host of public broadcaster CBC's news magazine "The Fifth Estate" beat four highly esteemed literary titles in a surprise upset.

His book, "The Bishop's Man," chronicles a priest's crisis of conscience after he is assigned to keep a lid on church sex scandals involving the abuse of children in a small town on Canada's Atlantic coast.

"The Bishop's Man" is his second novel and fourth book.

The son of a teacher and miner, MacIntyre has won acclaim for his coverage of the US campaign to win support for the first Gulf War, acid rain, the psychological abuse of a child by his parents, US policy in Iran, false sex abuse allegations in Saskatchewan and Canada's Airbus affair.

The Giller Prize, which comes with a cash award of 50,000 Canadian dollars (47,800 US dollars), was founded in 1994 by a Toronto businessman in honor of his late wife, literary journalist Doris Giller. It is financed by Scotiabank.