Polygon has acquired World English Language rights for debut author Chris Barkley’s expertly plotted mystery, The Man on the Endless Stair. Polygon’s Editor-at-Large Jamie Crawford procured the rights for this thrilling debut novel.

Ludo Cinelli, Agent and the Managing Director at Eve White Literary Agency, has said, ‘The Man on the Endless Stair is a dark, beguiling literary mystery from a visionary new talent. I can’t wait for Polygon and Chris Barkley to take readers under its spell.’

‘So much work has gone into this book, and at times I felt myself to be on an endless stair,’ commented author Chris Barkley, ‘I am happy, now, to have some excellent company on the climb. I know The Man on the Endless Stair is in capable hands and am overjoyed for Polygon to champion it.’

When troubled but talented young author Euan meets decorated novelist Malcolm Furnivall, he feels his luck has finally changed. Malcolm takes Euan as a protégé, inviting him to spend time on his secluded island in the Hebrides, nurturing his skills, and vouching for him in the rarefied literary scene of the 1950s.

But lately, Malcolm has not been himself. He cuts an increasingly isolated figure, consumed by his work, and has become convinced that something strange and terrible will befall him. Sensing the end, he summons his loved ones and – to everyone’s surprise – entrusts Euan with the task of completing his masterpiece.

Malcom’s suspicions soon prove well-founded; he is discovered brutally murdered in his study, and his invaluable unfinished novel has vanished. Cut off from the mainland, with the killer on the loose and the island’s inhabitants circling, Euan feels both his mentor’s legacy and his only chance at greatness slipping away—he must venture deep into Malcolm’s labyrinthine mansion to find the manuscript before it falls into the wrong hands.

But what he doesn’t yet know is that the closer he comes to solving the mystery, the tighter he will bind himself to a fate sealed in time…

Polygon’s Jamie Crawford said, ‘With shades of Borges and early Iain Banks, Chris Barkley has written a unique and startling debut novel. A “locked room” mystery set on a remote Scottish island sees books within books, stories within stories and people within people. The tension builds to a haunting climax that stays with you long after reading.’

The Man on the Endless Stair will be published by Polygon in Summer 2025.

Chris Barkley was appointed Writer in Residence by the Edinburgh Book Festival in 2022. He won the Oxford University Kellogg Writing Competition in 2021, as well as the Bedford International Writing Prize. He achieved a distinction on the MSt in Creative Writing at the University of Oxford and, before that, graduated from the Warwick University Writing Programme with a First. He has been shortlisted for the Cambridge Short Story Prize and has had prose published in TSS, National Flash Fiction, Darling Axe, and the Writers of the Future 35th anthology. He has also had poetry published in Agenda and won The Stage Award at Edinburgh Fringe in 2018. He lives in Edinburgh and can often be found camping in the Highlands. On social media, he is @TufferBarkley.