The life story of Belfast boxer Eamonn Magee has been named joint-winner of the prestigious William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award in London.
It is the first time in the history of the award scheme that the prize, worth £30,000, has been shared.
A Boy in the Water tells how author Tom Gregory became the youngest person to swim the Channel in 1988, billed as an uplifting read and a reminder of a different era - the minimum age to attempt the feat now being 16.
He shared the award with Paul D Gibson, whose book The Lost Soul of Eamonn Magee is much darker, telling the story of the top-level welterweight in the ring and outside, where shocking violence was seemingly his daily companion.
Gibson's manuscript was rejected by 13 publishers before Mercier Press took it on and it is the fifth boxing book to win the prestigious award that virtually guarantees bestseller status.
"In the 30 years since launching the award we have occasionally considered but never ultimately awarded, a dead heat but the (six) judges found it impossible to separate these two jointly deserving but very different books," said award co-founder Graham Sharpe, who recently retired after working for the British bookmaker for 45 years.
