Bedford Square Publishers buys Tony White's 'gripping crime novel'
Bedford Square Publishers’ No Exit Press imprint has signed Tony White’s new novel Phantom at the Feast, previously with Unbound.
Bedford Square editor at large Maxim Jakubowski negotiated the deal with Sarah Such at the Sarah Such Literary Agency, securing UK and Commonwealth rights including Canada, alongside rights to reissue the previous novel in the series featuring DS Rex King The Fountain in the Forest, which had been published by Faber.
Phantom at the Feast had previously been signed by crowdfunding publisher Unbound, which went into administration earlier this year.
No Exit Press said: “A gripping crime novel with acute social insights into the state of Britain, Phantom at the Feast and its companion volume are innovative narratives combining formal innovation with a gritty plot evoking the books of Jake Arnott, Italo Calvino and Paul Auster.”
Scheduled for publication in June 2026, Tony White’s series “offers a widespread gallery of hardboiled characters and cops of dubious morality with deep roots in the political fabric of British society since the miner’s strike, alongside ingenious metafictional tropes which unveil a compelling new path for the crime novel”.
Jakubowski said: “I have long been a fan of Tony White’s utterly unique books and the opportunity to welcome him onto the No Exit list was unmissable. No one combines experimentation so acutely with engineering the most fiendish clockwork-cum-crossword puzzles since Agatha Christie and John Dickson Carr. Tony is the most spectacular reader I have ever seen perform in public and Phantom at the Feast, with echoes of the coming of AI alongside a conspiracy plot worthy of John le Carré, is a crime novel for our times.”
Sarah Such says “I’m thrilled about this wonderful deal with Bedford Square Publishers for Tony White’s exceptional novel Phantom at the Feast, and to be working with Jamie Hodder-Williams, Maxim Jakubowski, Carolyn Mays and Laura Fletcher, all of whom I hold in such high esteem. The Bedford Square team’s collective zeal, enthusiasm for and commitment to Phantom at the Feast has been so impressive. It’s a dream team. I can’t wait for publication in 2026.”
Tony White said: “Rex King is back – and I’m truly delighted that Phantom at the Feast will be published by the great crime fiction imprint No Exit Press, alongside a reissue of The Fountain in the Forest. The ‘No Exit’ sign is an instantly recognisable guarantee of quality crime writing, and it’s a dream to be on the same list as legends like Ted Lewis and James Sallis, as well as Leigh Russell and John Williams among a growing list of contemporary authors I admire. I’m really looking forward to working with the great Maxim Jakubowski and the whole Bedford Square team to bring DS Rex King’s latest puzzling case to readers.”
White is the author of various other novels, was chair of Resonance FM radio station and was the first novelist to be published by the Science Museum where he was writer-in-residence. A former literary editor of the Idler, he has reviewed for the Guardian and Irish Times among many others. He is currently a Fellow of the Royal Literary Fund attached to Royal Holloway University of London, and an associate lecturer on the Creative Writing MA at Birkbeck, University of London, and for the Department of Literature, Film and Theatre Studies at the University of Essex.
