Quantum of Menace est le premier roman de la trilogie « The Q Mysteries » écrite par Vaseem Khan qui raconte les aventures du major Boothroyd, Q, qui, viré du MI6, devient enquêteur criminel. Paru le 23 octobre 2025 au Royaume-Uni, le roman n’a jamais été traduit en français.

Synopsis

Lorsque Q, récemment viré du MI6, reçoit une lettre posthume de son ancien ami Peter Napier, il comprend immédiatement que quelque chose ne tourne pas rond. Peter Napier, brillant scientifique, s’est officiellement noyé. Accident… Ou meurtre ?

Convaincu de la dernière hyptothèse, Q revient à Wickstone-on-Water, la ville qu’il avait juré de ne plus revoir. Mais son enquête dérange. Très vite, il découvre que les recherches de Napier pourraient changer le monde.

Entre une policière qui ne lui fait pas confiance, un adolescent pris dans un engrenage criminel, une organisation et un laboratoire souhaitant garder ses secrets, et un membre de sa famille, Q se retrouve une ville chargée de souvenirs et confronté à un passé qu’il avait fui…

 The face that looked back at him from the mirror – fifty, sandy-haired, clean-shaven, handsome – in the right light and if you asked the right person – looked pensive.
 Major Boothroyd. The artist formerly known as Q. Erstwhile head of Q Branch, the research and development arm of the British Secret Service aka the Secret Intelligence Service aka SIS aka MI6.
 And now… Well, who was he, exactly?
 The world had changed while he had been down in his bunker.
 For a quarter of a century he had served as a cog in a very important machine. A machine that, for all its faults, sought to make sense of the world, to divide the world into good and bad, and then side with the good, make the good happen. And Q had had a small but integral role to play in that.
 Q Branch. A government-funded warren of facilities in which inventions, big and small, were built, tested, rebuilt and then – perhaps more often than the taxpayer might approve of – blown up. The climatecontrolled office that was too cold in summer and too warm in winter. The plastic in-tray that sat on his desk, welcoming him each morning with its papery recriminations. The dog-legged corridor leading to the cramped little kitchen area, with its tiny fridge, Styrofoam cups and a coffee maker that, on a good day, dispensed something slightly less drinkable than river pollutant. A little further along was the conference room, dominated by a photograph of a monocled Sir Mansfield Cumming, the first Chief of the Secret Service, progenitor to them all. Cumming had lost a leg in a road accident; his habit of wrongfooting visitors by jabbing a compass into its wooden replacement had always seemed to Q one of the better urban myths hanging around the Service.
 Above all, there was the work. Project meetings and steering committees. Confabs with engineers, computer geeks and idiot savants with fluff in their navels. Mission planning with M and the Double Os. Mission post-mortems. Occasional excursions outside of Q Branch. Scientific symposiums in exotic locales, the sort to drive a travel agent to drink: Reykjavik in winter; Gaborone in high summer. Field testing new kit at the Porton Down military campus in Wiltshire, clods of earth flying in all directions. And, in recent years, the increasingly regular battles with beancounters and bureaucrats; a merry-go-round of operational and budget reviews, run by gangs of lobotomised hobbits who wouldn’t know an armour-piercing round if it hit them in the behind.

Vaseem Khan

Quantum of Menace

Résumé détaillé

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Personnages principaux

• Le major Boothroyd, « Q » : ancien chef de la section Q du MI6, il enquête sur la mort d’un ami.
• Peter Napier : scientifique en informatique quantique, retrouvé mort dans des circonstances suspectes.
• Kathy Burnham : Inspectrice principale qui enquête sur la mort de Napier et ex petite amie de Q.
• Bob Lazarus: Policier, collègue de Kathy.
• Mortimer « Mort » Boothroyd : père de Q.
• Mirko Demaçi : Chef d’une organisation criminelle.
• Papa John : Bras droit de Mirko Demaçi.
• Adem Gashi : Membre d’un réseau criminel local et neveu de Mirko Demaçi.
• Medium Tony : Membre d’un réseau criminel local.
• Zakaria « Zak » Youssef : Adolescent impliqué dans le vol d’une voiture et lié à l’affaire Napier.
• Sameera Youssef : mère de Zak.
• Helen Banner : ancienne collègue de Napier.
• Ricky : fils de Helen Banner.
• Jed Ellis : ancien collègue de Napier.
• Astrid Simmons : ancienne collègue de Napier.
• James Bond : agent 007 du MI6, ancien collègue de Q.
• Moneypenny : Ancienne collègue de Q.
• M : Ancienne chef de Q.
• Bastard : ancien chien de Napier, recueilli par Q.

Anecdotes

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L’auteur : Vaseem Khan

Arme principale : /

Véhicule : Caterham Seven

Pays principaux : Angleterre : Wickstone-on-Water (fictif), Londres

Articles sur le sujet

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Guide des éditions françaises

Éditions étrangères notables

Couvertures teaser

Chapitres

1. Chapter 1
2. Chapter 2
3. Chapter 3
4. Chapter 4
5. Chapter 5
6. Chapter 6
7. Chapter 7
8. Chapter 8
9. Chapter 9
10. Chapter 10
11. Chapter 11
12. Chapter 12
13. Chapter 13
14. Chapter 14
15. Chapter 15
16. Chapter 16
17. Chapter 17
18. Chapter 18
19. Chapter 19
20. Chapter 20
21. Chapter 21
22. Chapter 22
23. Chapter 23
24. Chapter 24
25. Chapter 25
26. Chapter 26
27. Chapter 27
28. Chapter 28
29. Chapter 29
30. Chapter 30
31. Chapter 31
32. Chapter 32
33. Chapter 33
34. Chapter 34
35. Chapter 35
36. Chapter 36
37. Chapter 37
38. Chapter 38
39. Chapter 39
40. Chapter 40
41. Chapter 41
42. Chapter 42
43. Chapter 43
44. Chapter 44
45. Chapter 45
46. Chapter 46
47. Chapter 47
48. Chapter 48
49. Chapter 49
50. Chapter 50
51. Chapter 51
52. Chapter 52
53. Chapter 53
54. Chapter 54
55. Chapter 55
56. Chapter 56
57. Chapter 57
58. Chapter 58
59. Chapter 59
60. Chapter 60
61. Chapter 61
62. Chapter 62
63. Chapter 63
64. Chapter 64
65. Chapter 65
66. Chapter 66
67. Chapter 67
68. Chapter 68
69. Chapter 69
70. Chapter 70
71. Chapter 71
72. Chapter 72