Someone said that the answer to this month’s riddle is the Delorean from Back to the Future.
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News after a fashion. Apparently we’ll now soon be reassessing the merits of those great misunderstood pioneers of science Drax and Obruchev…
Memorandum sent 15/9/2025
Classification: Gold level (For Your Eyes Only)
Dear colleagues,
I recently attended a cross-agency symposium for the Super Soldier 2050 programme, an MOD-led initiative aimed at enhancing the physical and cognitive abilities of our fighting men and women. The programme seeks to emulate our American cousins - the US Pentagon maintain a research budget of almost half a billion dollars per annum directed at ‘soldier enhancement’. The symposium leads me to speculate on how we might upgrade our very own ‘soldiers’ here at MI6 – the field agents of our Double O unit.
The dream of fashioning superior humans has long plagued military supremoes and scientists alike. Back in the 1920s, Soviet biologist Ilya Ivanovich Ivanov attempted to create a human-ape hybrid, with enhanced strength and pain tolerance. Some speculate that Bolshevik military leaders might have secretly financed his work, hoping for a ‘mutant army’. Ivanov, a pioneer of artificial insemination, duly proceeded with a series of (highly dubious) experiments, but was thwarted by the death of his last captive primate – a luckless orangutan. Some of you may also recall the book – and film – The Men Who Stare at Goats by Jon Ronson, detailing the US Army’s attempts to tap into paranormal human powers, including psychic espionage, mind control and the ability to remotely stop the hearts of goats.
I discussed these potential enhancements with 007. As you might expect, Bond had some pithy observations. ‘Q,’ he told me, ‘if I wanted to remotely stop a goat’s heart I’d just shoot it in the head with a sniper rifle.’ I suppose one cannot fault 007’s logic.
Finally, congratulations to JOHN B. for correctly ascertaining the answer to the puzzle in my previous memo, and for being fortunate enough to be picked at random from all the correct entries. The answer, of course, was a DeLorean (or DMC DeLorean or DeLorean DMC-12). Below you will find this edition’s puzzle. Good luck!
Sincerely,
Major Boothroyd
Head of Q Branch
P.S. Here is this edition’s puzzle. One ‘winner’ shall be picked at random from all correct entries and will be mentioned in my following memo. MI6 Archives shall rustle up a book to send to you* Pot luck, I’m afraid! Fill in this formto enter… This month’s puzzle is as follows:
In what year was America’s most famous fictional super-soldier introduced?
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Less than a month to go!
VASEEM’S NEWSLETTER
[This image of me shows me sitting with the new Agatha Christie statue in her hometown of Torquay where I recently spoke at the International Agatha Christie Festival.]
Hello!
If you are new to this newsletter, welcome! I send one of these out approx. 6 times a year and you’ll find news, short stories, giveaways, competitions, book extracts, my recommendations, articles, and more… Let’s get to it! (And yes it’s a bit late for a ‘summer’ newsletter, but I’ve been a bit busy… Apologies!)
30 day countdown!
Pre-order QUANTUM OF MENACE
We are exactly a month away from the launch of Quantum of Menace on Oct 23rd, the first in a mystery series featuring Q – aka Major Boothroyd – from the James Bond universe. I was asked to write the book by the Ian Fleming estate (Fleming being Bond’s creator). It’s not spy fiction but rather a ‘clever cosy crime’ novel aimed at fans of Richard Osman, Mick Herron and Janice Hallett.
In the book, a fifty-year-old Q finds himself kicked out of (modern day) MI6. He returns to his hometown to investigate the mysterious death of his childhood friend, quantum computer scientist Peter Napier. Napier had been on the verge of a major - and possibly very dangerous - breakthrough.
This book is for those who love a solid mystery, in the company of a protagonist who transcends the genre. There’s dry humour, cryptic clues, and an insight into Q’s life at - and post - MI6. And, yes, Commander James Bond puts in an appearance. How could he not!
I would be immensely grateful if you considered pre-ordering it. It is available from all good bookshops and online. Here are some order links . (Note: there are special editions available, including from Waterstones, which you can access from the link.)
(NOTE: At present the publication date in the US is still to be finalised. Apologies!)
Why should you pre-order
QUANTUM OF MENACE?
The book is being listed by various publications as one of the major releases this year, including by The Guardian which listed it in an article entitled ‘The biggest books of the autumn’ alongside a host of bestselling names.
And h ere’s what some of the top crime writers in the world are saying about the book. Add to these endorsements from Ann Cleeves and Mark Billingham and you have plenty of reasons to try out the book:
Once again, if you would like to pre order, here are some order links
The below is an extract from QUANTUM OF MENACE by Vaseem Khan.
Q picked up a glass of last night’s camomile tea from the desk, stood and walked to the open window.
Behind him, Bastard shifted around at the bottom of the bed, paw poised in a dream. Above: a sprinkling of stars, diamonds thrown against velvet.
The house – a rental property grandiosely named Sanctus Villa – was the last on the road, standing at the apex of a minor hill, known locally as ‘Holy Hill’. The double-storeyed cottage was said to mark the end point of an easterly ley line that connected a Neolithic long barrow, a Bronze Age burial ground, and – as locals were wont to joke – the new Waitrose in the centre of town.
Locals. Strange to think that, once upon a time, he had been a local too.
His memory tentacled into the past, caught hold of the old nuclear bunker out on the edge of town, now the site of Pete Napier’s lab. As a boy, he remembered hopping the fence with Pete, groping their way through the catacombs, torches in hand. Losing their way.
History, repeating itself.
What exactly was he supposed to do now?
In medieval Japan, a samurai who had lost his position had two options.
Become ronin, an outcast, wandering the barren wastes like a dispossessed ghost, forever in need of a home, purpose, dignity.
Or commit seppuku.
He imagined walking into the centre of Wickstone-on-Water and disembowelling himself in front of the town hall. Probably some sort of local ordinance forbidding it.
A glance at the bottom of the letter, eyes lingering on the mystery inscribed there; and then he walked back to the desk, and fired up his laptop, before navigating to the encrypted site he used to communicate with the few acquaintances from his former life he still had left.
Bond’s number hovered below an avatar of Paddington Bear.
It occurred to Q that he had never asked Bond: why Paddington? Possibly because he was afraid of the answer. Probably involved murdering several people, and then sleeping with someone glamorous.
If there was one thing Q would never admit to, it was that he had quite enjoyed Bond’s salty stories. The man was an insufferable egomaniac, with a penchant for shooting people in the face rather than bringing them in so that justice might be served or, heaven forbid, sitting them down for a cup of tea and a chat. But at least he lived life at a hundred miles an hour.
And beneath the smooth spy exterior there lurked a man that Q had, against all odds, found himself warming to. There was something noble about Bond, an unyielding, old-fashioned adherence to values that were fast vanishing from the world. An acknowledgement that, in an age of venality and vice, there were still those who believed in something greater than themselves. In goodness. In decency. In doing the right thing, even if it wasn’t always obvious where the lines were drawn.
Values that bound them together. Even Bond had recognised that, in time.
It would explain why the man had remained in touch after Q’s eviction from the Service, when all his other colleagues had deserted him as if he had admitted to watching Bake Off Russia.
Q dialled Bond’s number. After a while, the dial tone clicked off. Nobody home.
Q shut the laptop, and returned to Napier’s letter. Once again, his gaze was drawn to the enigma at the very bottom:
UUSCVILCTRAKYMJCKNMKHEA
WIUGXUJYHAKRVA
GANCETWKTTGP
LIUQYNLJIOFCS
And below that, a single word: Easy!
Q had been around enough ciphers to know one when he saw it. Despite Pete Napier’s assertion, there was nothing ‘easy’ here, or he would have cracked it already.
The real question was: why?
Why would a man who had drowned himself send Q a letter like this – dated the day of his death? Why the cipher?
It made no sense. Except that it did.
Pete had known something bad was going to happen. And he had reached out to Q. Presumably because of that tenuous bond that connected them.
The letter had found Q at precisely the right moment. Still reeling from the shock of his dismissal from MI6. Don’t fight it, Q. You won’t win. It was the brutality of the end that had taken him by surprise. They might as well have taken him into a field and put a bullet in the back of his head.
In the months since, he had tried to take stock of his life . . . Transferable skills: isn’t that what they called them, these days? Was the ability to fashion weaponry out of almost anything a transferable skill valued in the modern workplace? Perhaps it wouldn’t be so hard for him to get back on the horse . . . But what if the horse didn’t want him? What if he didn’t want the horse? His role at MI6 had been highly specialised. His dismissal – and M’s vindictiveness – had queered the pitch when it came to other intelligence agencies. Which meant a role in the civilian sector. Somehow, Q couldn’t imagine himself designing airport hand dryers for the remainder of his days.
And then, just a fortnight earlier, Pete’s letter had finally reached him.The letter appeared to have been posted several weeks after Pete’s death. Clearly, he had left instructions – with a lawyer, perhaps, or a friendly face at the post office. Until the letter, Q hadn’t even heard of Pete’s demise, so utterly had he cut himself off from the news cycle.
The letter – and his own subsequent online investigations – had ignited something in him. A sense of mission. At a time when he badly needed a purpose. Had that been Pete’s intent? The letter implied that Pete expected him to return to Wickstone to dig up answers. But answers to what? Could a handful of lines in a note really indicate the possibility that there was more to Pete’s death than misadventure?
Only one way to find out.
And so here he was.
They said you could never go home.
Whoever said that had never received a letter from a dead man.
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Has decided my mind on whether I buy this, so many thanks.
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I really like how that excerpt is written. That is not the tone I was expecting. I’m looking forward to this more than I was before reading that.
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Well, that’s fair enough, of course.
For me, imagine a hundred-mile high glistening golden god, standing atop an infinite number of gram-o-phone speakers and, in a voice so deep it that could crack the oceans, hollering at every nebula and across many moons the word “no”, and that’s still not quite the amount of “no” I’m feeling here.
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I get it! If we’re going to be getting another attempt at a quirky spin off, I at least like the approach this one seems to be taking of positioning Q as an out of work man in his 50’s with a highly specialized skill set with absolutely no idea what to do next. I think that’s an interesting and relatable concern, especially given the pessimism about the future of work floating around out there. That’s a tough age to be in a position to start over, so, at least in theory, that’s an emotionally compelling place to have him at the start.
Ever the optimist, I know!
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Murdering several people, with a penchant for shooting people in the face?
No thank you… 
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https://www.instagram.com/p/DP33B4WDgPr/
The Q Mysteries book 2 announced: The Man With The Golden Compass. Launching about a year from now.
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https://www.instagram.com/p/DQEQBvujQBn/
I’m surprised that no one has mentioned getting this yet.
I’m sure there is a market for a slightly left-field, slightly nerdy cosy crime series with a vague Bond and/or espionage connection. Just as there was a market for 40 different iterations of the Dick Francis horse racing thriller. But I really suspect it’s a comparatively niche one, its Venn diagram made up of 1) Vaseem Khan completists 2) Bond completists 3) cosy crime completists and 4) people suffering from digestive-induced insomnia.
Mind you, this may be great books and I’m sure Vaseem Khan put his heart into this, absolutely. I really wish them well - I just struggle to find myself in that Venn diagram. But if people read and enjoy them and perhaps start reading and enjoying other Bond stuff because of this Q series, then much the better and welcome to the newcomers to the franchise.
In about a year we are set to meet another facet of the Bond utilisation cycle with headmaster Bond, so I suppose this will not be the most unlikely of creatures from the Doctor F̶r̶a̶n̶k̶e̶n̶s̶t̶e̶i̶n̶ Amazon laboratories…
ADDENDUM: The Quick News Submission - all the news that’s not fit to go somewhere else - #266 by Dustin
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Some reviews:
PS: Supposedly some unnamed major newspaper reviewed Quantum of Menace revealing a major spoiler. Prospective readers might want to avoid that review.
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I suspected from the first announcement that I didn’t possess a button that this series would push to engage my interest. These reviews confirm that suspicion. Thanks for sharing as I might have been seduced into a knee-jerk purchase otherwise.
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There is a meta-element running through this concept - several times it’s mentioned how ‘What would Bond do now?’ is at the core of this tale. Ironic considering Bond’s solutions can entail hiding a secret note under a toilet seat or breaking an airplane window with his hidden mini dagger while his opponent sleeps…it’s safe to say Bond’s course of action isn’t what we’d call promising or superior use of intellect. Bond succeeds because of his giant gift of endurance - and because he’s got luck on his side.
There is some potential in tales following former members of the secret brother-/sisterhood in real life (as countless books and series already made use of). Taking one obscure side character from Bond’s world, effectively inventing the figure anew from scratch, then putting it into a different context may be an amusing intellectual exercise. It just begs the question why one would do that? The only compelling reason I could see was if Khan invents a Boothroyd interesting enough so I’d want to read more about that character.
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What’s cosy about crime, I always wanted to know.
It’s like publishers telling readers: murder can be not so gruesome, even comfortable to read about, if the setting is nice and the characters are funny and adorable.
Then again, there are zombie novels for young readers now, too.
Will we finally get a political thriller as a picture book for kindergarden kids?
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Things come in three’s, it seems. This week, three of my favorite franchises had a new novel released: Quantum of Menace (Bond), Batman Revolution and Star Wars: The Last Order. At least two of the three novels are getting good reviews. I also got to see Batman Revolution launched by its author, John Jackson Miller. He signed a copy for me!
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https://www.radiotimes.com/books/james-bond-q-spin-off-quantum-of-menace/
Great interview and some details on what’s to come! I hope a USA release day is coming soon. I’m also surprised no one on here is talking about or reading the book.
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I’m working on it! About a hundred pages in, waiting to give full thoughts until it’s over. To date? Very readable, just a very different and unusual addition to the literary canon. Again, too early to make a call, but I’m curious enough about where it’s headed to keep reading. It’s bang up to date, though. Like, up to the minute modern. So that’s cool.
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Alright, just wrapped it up. The author’s note at the end makes it clear that Vaseem Khan was approached by IFP specifically to write a series about Q, so none of this was natively his idea. If I were in his shoes I wouldn’t even know where to begin, so I guess it’s a small miracle he got this over the line at all.
I would describe the style of the work as high on empathy and low on atmosphere. This is a very gentle read, in a style that isn’t terribly far removed from Lee Child (who unsurprisingly has a blurb on the cover). Bond is present throughout (more or less), though I’m sure some may bristle at his characterization (more Rog than Fleming). There are some terrific passages and interesting descriptions, particularly when Khan is tackling the internal world, but I have to stress, this is a very light read. The crime at the center of it is exactly what it presents itself to be; this is, plain and simple, a murder mystery. There are fewer gadgets than you’d expect, a dog that seems to exist to serve as a gag near the end (I got a chuckle out of it, at least), and as I mentioned above, it’s pretty up-to-the-minute. Learning about Quantum computers (hence the name of the book) was interesting, and having learned about their potential power, I’m glad that we’re still a ways off from that technology (we have enough to worry about already, don’t we?). Still, that particular thread served a more utilitarian purpose than I had been anticipating. Ultimately this is very much a story about Q cruising around asking questions and eventually finding answers. In other words, what it says on the tin.
So what do I think? Well, Vaseem Khan did the absolute best he could with an absolutely wacky premise from IFP. He made it his own, infused the tale with some wit and insight, philosophized in a way that resonated with me on more than one occasion, and allowed me to have a moment with Bond at the end of the year, which is something I’ll always be grateful for (or so I hope). Was there ever going to be an author who could fully justify the premise of a series of Q mystery stories beyond the obvious “universe expanding” cash grab exercise this plainly is (I cynically submit)? Probably not. But Khan took the pen when it was offered and let it rip in his own way. His heart is in the right place, and I genuinely appreciate his insights and wisdom.
I hope these books sell well for him. He loves Bond, and it shows. You don’t write lines like this if you’re just cashing a paycheck: “ At the end of time, when the stars shook and the heavens fell, Bond would be there, standing at the gates of hell, facing off against the Devil.”
Not bad, that.
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