James Bond spin-off author reveals why he feared becoming public enemy no. 1 with new book

Only a handful of authors have ever been gifted the opportunity to play in the James Bond sandbox originally devised and expanded by Ian Fleming across a series of 14 007 books. So, for award-winning writer Vaseem Khan, best known for his Baby Ganesh Detective Agency novels, being asked to pen a new series of spin-off novels featuring Bond's beloved gadget-master Q as the lead felt incredibly exciting, but at the same time "tempered by the feeling that people are so wedded to this iconic character".

"If I were to make a mess of this..." he tells Radio Times. "...I'd be public enemy number one for Bond fans."

Helping to temper his nerves somewhat is that Quantum of Menace – the first in the new Q series – is not a Bond continuation novel in the strictest sense. Instead, it's a sidestep that, according to Khan, "sits somewhere between Mick Herron's Slow Horses and Richard Osman's Thursday Murder Club".

"It's not a spy novel," he's quick to clarify, with the story of this debut book seeing Q unexpectedly ousted from his role at MI6. Returning to his quiet hometown of Wickstone-on-Water, the man also known as Major Boothroyd soon becomes entangled in an investigation into the death of a childhood friend – renowned quantum computer scientist Peter Napier – and learns that Napier’s cutting-edge work may have drawn dangerous attention.

Besides being a successful author, Khan is the Business Development Director at the UCL Security and Crime Science Department, where he helps manage the UCL Dawes Centre for Future Crime. Their work exploring how emerging technologies – such as quantum computing – could be exploited by criminals has directly influenced the themes of his book.

The ambition was to provide us with a whole new outlook on Bond's world – and an entirely new Q, too. "It's taking a character that we think we know, and completely reinventing him," says Khan.

"He hardly appeared in the [Fleming] books at all… we know very little about him. And in the movies, it's always a five-minute skit of things exploding in the lab and him saying, 'Grow up, 007!' – I wanted a real flesh-and-blood character and I didn't want a caricature, a bumbling boffin tripping over his own laces...

"My Q is a scientist, who takes himself very seriously, and he generally knows that he's the smartest person in the room. That being said, I also wanted him to be a fish out of water – he's a man who, in spite of all this success and things that he's done in his life, is now at sea. He's at loggerheads with the establishment, who don't want him around, and he's now having to decipher what the next phase of his life will involve."

Q has been portrayed on-screen by several actors, but most notably by Desmond Llewelyn – who played the character in 17 films between 1963 and 1999 – and by Ben Whishaw – who took up the mantle in three cinema outings released between 2012 and 2021.

The version who appears in Quantum of Menace is an original creation who, Khan says, lies somewhere "in the middle of these two iconic representations on-screen" – Whishaw's younger whizkid and Llewelyn's elder statesman armourer.

"My Q is in his 50s – he’s not Llewelyn, he's a bit younger than that, so he can do a bit more action if necessary, but also, at the same same time, he's clued up on modern tech and cyber security and all of those things the way that Ben Whishaw is."

The book also delves into this Q's romantic history, with the police officer investigating Napier's death also happening to be Boothroyd's ex-fiancée, the pair having parted on less than amicable terms. "One of the reasons we love James Bond is that he does have a very colourful romantic life," says Khan of this addition. "Q, of course, is not a womaniser, but nobody is divorced from the practicalities of life, or their emotions."

There is also – spoiler alert – passing reference to another romantic affair that might raise a few eyebrows among the Bond fandom: this Q, we learn, had a short workplace romance with Moneypenny, under the nose of an oblivious Bond. It's certainly a departure from established lore, though not one that Ian Fleming Publications objected to. "They've given me almost carte blanche, as long as I don't upset the entire Bond world. If I were to do something really ludicrous – having Q turn out to be Blofeld's best friend or something – that wouldn't pass muster.

"The only other restrictions were that if there is something that appears only in the films, we couldn't really use it. So for instance, my first draft had Aston Martins mentioned, but of course, that's largely from the films – Bond's car originally was a Bentley. So I had to go back and change those references... just small things like that."

Quantum of Menace is already earning a warm reception from Bond fans and critics – and the good news is that the next entry in the series isn't far off. In fact, the first chapter of the follow-up appears as a teaser at the back of the QoM hardback edition.

"The second book is called The Man With the Golden Compass," Khan reveals. "I'm having a lot of fun with these titles, I have to say!"

The sequel will see Q now employed by the police as a civilian contractor to consult on a case involving a tech millionaire who has made his fortune creating virtual reality environments for adult gaming. "He’s come to Q’s hometown, bought a massive stately home, and then he’s been gruesomely murdered! The police discover him, and on his body they find a small, round disc coated in gold with Nordic runes — and that allows Q to get involved…"

Further blending traditional crime mystery with modern tech elements, The Man With the Golden Compass will also continue to expand on and explore Q's personal life – this time by introducing a family member who Khan calls "possibly [his] favourite character in the series" so far.

"That is Q's father, Mortimer Boothroyd. He's a retired historian who Q has not spoken to for three decades for a reason that's revealed in the book, and he's just as prickly and just as acerbic as Q... so when the pair of them meet, sparks fly!"

Quantum of Menace, the first book in Vaseem Khan's Q Mysteries series, is out now.

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