Winner for Limited Edition of Shadow Prowler, by Alexey Pehov

Thank you for all who entered the competition. I will announce the winner in a moment, but first I'd like to collate the entrants' thoughts about thieves in fiction. I simply asked whether people liked them. Here are the results:

• Like thieves or not ? Well it really depends. If you are talking about the "good" type of thieves then yes if the character is interesting and very clever in the way they steal. The old "golden-hearted" thief type. If they are evil and scary, then yes as well provided they are not just stupid and violent with no charcter traits to make them interesting said BuddyT
  
• I'm fine with thieves in fiction as long as they're presented as well-rounded characters with a decent backstory. I don't have to like the character so long as they and their actions are believable. That said, I suppose it depends on the individual character and the setting I find them in said Sam
• An interesting question! It all depends really, as long as they're present well, or struggling against a corrupt authority which is making people poor and needing to steal to survive. Though an anti-hero is also good, still a very underused genre methinks said Keith
• I like thieves. As a child I stole and would as an adult if I thought nobody would see, if no CCTV said pithound
• It depends on what kind of thief, but usually I like them, especially if you don't know who the thieve is and you have to find out. But if the protagonist of the novel is a thief, I would prefer that he had a good reason for stealing said Spav
• I like thieves. Everyone's a thief - everyone deprives others of something. In the same way no lunch is a free lunch, we deprive someone of something whenever we decide to do anything. It's human nature - everyone's a thief. So of course I like thieves in fiction. Their inclusion in literature signifies an acknowledgement of the thieving nature of humanity although this may or may not be an acceptance of it. So there, yes, I like thieves said Dwayne.
• I think it depends very much on the author's perspective. If he or she is on the thief's side and the victim is obviously meant to be disliked, we will side with the thief and want him to succeed.said Happyfox
• I actually did a blog post a few weeks ago about how I'm usually drawn to books about thieves. From Robin Hood to Locke Lamora, they are usually the most interesting kind of characters. Particularly books a thief would normally be considered a villain of some sort but as a protagonist, the author has to show us their "good" side, which makes it even more interesting said Simcha
• It depends. I like Robin Hood because he's a "good" thief, but I'm not sure about the others said Aik

Generally, people like a good thief. Bad thieves make interesting characters.

I can happily announce that the winner is

pithound!

Congratulations, I'll be emailing you today (Friday 30th April) to arrange where to send Shadow Prowler to you.