It’s not often
you have a book endorsed by Mick Herron, Ann Cleeves, Lee Child, Mark
Billingham, Janice Hallett and Charlie Higson (among others) before it has even
been published, but that is the (very fortunate) situation with my latest
novel, Quantum of Menace, out on Oct
23rd.
Quantum of Menace is not a spy novel, though Q’s past is a lurking presence that he cannot completely divorce himself from. This is a book about a man who has lost his bearings, a man contemplating a lonely future where he has become superfluous to requirements. It’s also a book about what modern Britain stands for and what fighting the good fight now means. Q has fought that fight for more years than he cares to remember. Now he must call upon his intellect to solve a more local crime.
During the course of his return home, we see Q coming to terms with his own broken past. We also, at long last, get to discover the man behind the Q myth.
In the build up to the book’s release, I recently spoke at the Henley Literary Festival, where I was interviewed by James Scudamore, a member of the Ian Fleming family, and one of the individuals behind the decision to ask me, in the summer of 2023 (via Ian Fleming Publishing Limited (IFPL), the publishing arm of the Ian Fleming estate), whether I might be interested in writing a mystery series featuring Q? Fair to say that I was stunned. It’s not every day you find yourself invited to take on one of the most iconic characters in fiction.
The requirement was not for another Bond-style spy thriller, but a traditional mystery. I was asked to put on my thinking cap.
But how does one approach the business of bringing to life someone else’s characters? I’ve been relatively fortunate in that from the beginning it was clear that I wasn’t imitating Fleming. The book was to be entirely my own creation, albeit using characters and a background that millions will be familiar with.
I presented several plots, and my own sense of how I wished the series to play out. In particular, given that Q appears only briefly in the novels, I was given carte blanche to bring Q to life as a ‘whole’ character – I chose not to paint him as a caricature but as a serious scientist, a man who has given his all to his country for three decades only to find himself cast aside. Is he bitter? Of course he is!
His return to his hometown is fraught with tension. Wickstone-on-Water is the sort of once sleepy place that often appears in cosy crime, but with a distinctly edgy vibe: a few thousand people whose halcyon view of the world is being tested by recent migration and the activities of county lines drugs traffickers.
In the book, Q investigates the mysterious death of his childhood friend, Peter Napier, a quantum computer scientist who had been on the verge of a major - and possibly very dangerous - breakthrough. With this particular plot, I hoped to tap into some of the fears about unchecked technological advancement that are impacting both individuals and state actors.
Yet, the plot is intensely local, and it is the personal relationships that Q is forced to resume that add the real tension to his return. We get to meet Q’s estranged father – Mortimer Boothroyd – a surly, retired ancient Roman historian, and his even more estranged childhood fiancĂ©, now the detective in charge of the original investigation into Napier’s death.
I confess I’ve always had a soft spot for Q. He never appeared much in the books – essentially, almost everything we know about him comes from the films. But I always believed him to be a serious man, a weapons scientist who takes himself – and his mission – helping safeguard the civilised world – as a sacred trust. That’s the Q I have brought to life.
Quantum of Menace is undoubtedly a child of its time, another entry in the ‘clever cosy crime’ subgenre that has taken the publishing world by storm in recent years. For me the dilemma was simple: how do I combine what we love about the Bond canon – for instance, the prickly relationship between Bond and Q – whilst bringing in everything a sophisticated cosy audience has come to expect? i.e. dry wit, quirky personas and an emphasis on the puzzle rather than, say, rocket launchers fired from the tops of speeding trains?
The answer, I hope, is now enshrined within the pages of this book and its sequel, The Man with the Golden Compass, the opening chapters of which are included at the back of Quantum of Menace.
The tone of the novel lies somewhere between Mick Herron’s Slow Horses and Richard Osman’s The Thursday Murder Club. There's dry humour, cryptic clues, an insight into Q's life at - and post - MI6, and, yes, Commander Bond puts in an appearance. How could he not!
Quantum of Menace by Vaseem Khan. (Bonnier
Books Ltd) Out 23rd October 2025
Q is out of MI6 and into a new
world of deceit and death. After Q (aka Major Boothroyd) is unexpectedly ousted
from his role with British Intelligence developing technologies for MI6's OO
agents, he finds himself back in his sleepy hometown of Wickstone-on-Water. His
childhood friend, renowned quantum computer scientist Peter Napier, has died in
mysterious circumstances, leaving behind a cryptic note. The police seem
uninterested, but Q feels compelled to investigate and soon discovers that
Napier's ground-breaking work may have attracted sinister forces . . . Can Q
decode the truth behind Napier's death, even as danger closes in?
The book is out on October
23rd. You can find buy options
here.
Publishing in hardback
(including special editions by Waterstones,
Goldsboro
Books and independent bookshops), audio and
e-book.
