The Sith Lord – who was the primary villain in Episode I: The Phantom Menace – appears at the end of the film, revealed as the true leader of the Crimson Dawn crime syndicate and boss to Han's former love interest Qi'Ra (Emilia Clarke) who double crosses him to climb the ladder of the criminal underworld.

Maul appears as the two share a holo-call, in which he tells her to meet him on planet Dathomir, where they will join forces.

And now, in an interview with StarWars.com, Mur Lafferty, the author of the Solo: A Star Wars Story novel (which is due out at the beginning of September), has confirmed that the book will suggest that Qi'Ra had no idea who Maul was when she called him (going over her deceased boss Dryden's head).

“I don’t think she would have known who he was,” Lafferty said. “They sort of implied that Dryden was beholden to someone a lot more powerful than he was. And so she knew that whoever it was scared him, but she didn’t know that the guy used to be a Sith Lord. She didn’t know who he was. She just knew that that button would call Dryden Vos’s boss.”

So, perhaps Qi'Ra's intentions weren't quite as grim as they initially appeared...

Solo: A Star Wars Story: Expanded edition is set to be released in UK bookshops and on Amazon on Thursday 6th September

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