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Writing his own episodes of his favourite show, “The Man From U.N.C.L.E.,” left a deep impression on him. “It is the thing I credit more than anything else for my wanting to become a writer,” said Barclay, who moved to Canada from Connecticut as a child. “It exploded my imagination.” When he was in Grade 6, he wrote a script that his parents mailed to the studio that produced the series. In return, he received “an envelope with personally autographed photos of the two stars and a letter saying they prefer to go through agents but thank you for sending your work.” In his early teens he turned to writing fan fiction based on “Columbo” and “Mission Impossible,” juvenilia he hopes he tossed years ago.

In 1970, when he was 15, his local bookstore was the squeaking, spinning wire paperback rack at the IGA grocery store in Bobcaygeon, Ont., and it was there that Macdonald’s “The Goodbye Look,” featuring private detective Lew Archer, caught his eye because the typeface on the cover reminded him of “The Man From U.N.C.L.E.” On the cover was a quote from Hollywood screenwriter William Goldman: “The finest series of detective novels ever written by an American.” Macdonald’s Archer inspired Barclay to write a crime novel called “The Open Eye,” its title lifted from a Margaret Atwood poem: “you fit into me / like a hook into an eye / a fish hook / an open eye.” (It remains unpublished.)

As an undergraduate studying literature at Trent University, he met with writer-in-residence Laurence, who encouraged him, writing to publisher A.A. Knopf on his behalf, though, Barclay said, “none of those books were ever published and I think we can all be grateful.”

While at Trent, Barclay wrote a thesis “on the private eye as an iconic figure in literature, focusing on Lew Archer.” He wrote to Millar, in care of his New York publisher, asking for direction, and in a few weeks received a handwritten response in an envelope with Millar’s home address. Thus began a lengthy correspondence with his favourite novelist, whom he would meet in person once.

One spring evening Millar and his wife Margaret, visiting Canadian relatives in Peterborough, invited Barclay to dinner. That night Millar inscribed ‘Sleeping Beauty’ — the penultimate of 18 Lew Archer novels — with words that choke Barclay up 50 years later: “For Linwood, May 1, 1976, who will I hope someday outwrite me.”

Barclay’s “Whistle” is a departure from his conventional thrillers: it’s a horror story that emerged out of two ideas. Twenty years ago, he thought about a mentally unstable protagonist who built a model railway throughout an abandoned house, coupling that notion, he said, with “why can’t model trains be evil, not just dolls?”

He feared, however, that he couldn’t make the trains seem evil, only silly. He needn’t have worried: they are indeed menacing. “At the back of my mind,” he added, “was the potential chlorine gas disaster of the Mississauga train derailment (in 1979) that I worked on as a reporter.”

When his publishers were not sure about a horror novel from him, Barclay mailed the manuscript to Stephen King, a discerning reader of the genre, who, he says, “was very supportive and thinks it’s terrific.”

But Barclay remains cautious about general reader responses yet unknown. “It’ll be interesting to see how the public reacts to this because it’s so different,” he said. “If it’s positive, then I’ll probably do more of this, but if it sinks like a stone, it will probably be the last of its kind. I think it’s the best book I’ve ever done.”

Because he writes quickly, having spent decades “working for newspapers where you don’t sit on stuff,” Barclay not only produced “Whistle” in four months, but also wrote a backup thriller, “Pirate,” in the subsequent four months, in case “Whistle” didn’t sell. Now that his publishers are fully behind his foray into horror, he already has “Pirate” lined up for 2026, giving himself a bit of a writing break, knowing that his family will be busy with the addition of his daughter’s twins expected in June. His main job, he said, will be as a supportive grandfather, and he wants to be wholly present for them.

Though he’s an expat American, Barclay said, “I feel 95 per cent Canadian even though I have two passports. My books up until now have been set in the States because when you’re trying to get published and a U.S. publisher will take you, you dance with the one what brung ya.” Current events have made him rethink that strategy: “‘Pirate’ is set in pc28����and the (work in progress) after that is set in Ontario. My heart is with Canada in everything that’s going on.”

Macdonald’s personalized copy of “Sleeping Beauty” that is surely a talisman for Barclay’s writing life accurately predicted his winning future. With more than 30 books and tens of millions of copies in print worldwide, he has already outwritten his literary idol. It couldn’t have happened to a nicer fellow.