Quiz of the Day
Mystery & Detective Fiction
Friday, 22 May 2026
Sherlock Holmes Day — famous detectives, mystery writers, unsolved cases
1. Who created the fictional detective Sherlock Holmes?
- Agatha Christie
- Arthur Conan Doyle
- Wilkie Collins
- Edgar Allan Poe
Conan Doyle based Holmes partly on Dr Joseph Bell, a surgeon at Edinburgh University known for his remarkable powers of observation and deduction. Conan Doyle grew to resent Holmes's popularity, overshadowing his historical novels, and famously killed him off in 1893 — only to bring him back due to public outrage.
2. What is the address of Sherlock Holmes's famous London residence?
- 7 Savile Row
- 221B Baker Street
- 10 Downing Street
- 48 Doughty Street
When the stories were written, Baker Street didn't extend to number 221. Today the Sherlock Holmes Museum sits at 239 Baker Street but uses the 221B address. The building society that formerly occupied the site employed a full-time secretary to answer letters addressed to Holmes.
3. Which author is known as the 'Queen of Crime' for her mystery novels?
- Agatha Christie
- Dorothy L. Sayers
- P.D. James
- Ruth Rendell
Christie is the best-selling fiction writer of all time, with over 2 billion copies sold. Her play 'The Mousetrap' has run continuously in London's West End since 1952 — over 70 years. In 1926, she herself became a real mystery when she disappeared for 11 days, sparking a massive manhunt.
4. Which fictional detective solves crimes from her English village of St Mary Mead?
- Miss Marple
- Nancy Drew
- Jessica Fletcher
- Harriet Vane
Agatha Christie based Miss Marple partly on her own grandmother and her grandmother's friends — elderly women who 'always expected the worst of everyone and everything, and were usually proved right.' Christie actually preferred Marple to Poirot but wrote more Poirot novels.
5. What is the term for a misleading clue deliberately planted to divert suspicion in a mystery?
- Red herring
- MacGuffin
- Smoking gun
- Plot twist
The term comes from the practice of using smoked fish (which turns red) to train hunting dogs. A red herring dragged across a trail would test whether dogs could stay on the original scent. In mystery writing, it has been a staple technique since the genre's earliest days.
6. Who is widely considered to have written the first modern detective story, 'The Murders in the Rue Morgue' (1841)?
- Edgar Allan Poe
- Arthur Conan Doyle
- Charles Dickens
- Wilkie Collins
Poe's detective C. Auguste Dupin appeared 46 years before Sherlock Holmes and established many conventions of the genre: the brilliant detective, the less-clever narrator companion, the baffled police, and the solution revealed through logic. Conan Doyle himself acknowledged his debt to Poe.
7. In the board game Cluedo (Clue), how many suspect characters are there in the classic version?
- 4
- 8
- 6
- 5
Cluedo was invented in 1943 by Anthony Pratt, a solicitor's clerk from Birmingham, during World War II air-raid blackouts when people needed indoor entertainment. The six original suspects — Miss Scarlet, Colonel Mustard, Mrs White, Reverend Green, Mrs Peacock, and Professor Plum — have become cultural icons.
8. Which real-life serial killer was never caught despite terrorising London's East End in 1888?
- Jack the Ripper
- The Yorkshire Ripper
- The Zodiac Killer
- Son of Sam
Jack the Ripper killed at least five women in Whitechapel over just ten weeks. Despite being one of the most investigated cold cases in history, the killer's identity remains unproven. Over 100 suspects have been named, ranging from a Polish immigrant to members of the Royal Family.
9. What method does Hercule Poirot famously rely on to solve his cases?
- Fingerprint analysis
- His 'little grey cells' — pure reasoning
- A network of street informants
- Disguises and undercover work
Poirot appeared in 33 novels and over 50 short stories. Christie made him Belgian specifically so his foreignness would make English suspects underestimate him. She eventually grew to dislike the character, calling him a 'detestable, bombastic, tiresome little creature.'
10. What is a 'locked-room mystery'?
- A story with a hidden room in a mansion
- A crime committed in a seemingly sealed room with no way in or out
- A mystery set in a prison
- A mystery where the detective is trapped
The locked-room mystery dates back to Poe's 'Murders in the Rue Morgue.' John Dickson Carr became the undisputed master of the form, writing dozens of 'impossible crime' novels. His character Dr Fell even delivers a famous lecture cataloguing every method ever used to commit a locked-room murder.
11. Which Scandinavian country sparked a global trend in dark, atmospheric crime fiction known as 'Nordic noir'?
- Sweden
- Norway
- Finland
- Denmark
Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo's ten-novel 'Martin Beck' series (1965-1975) essentially invented Nordic noir. Stieg Larsson's 'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo' (2005) reignited global interest. The genre is characterised by bleak settings, social criticism, and morally complex protagonists.
12. What was the name of Sherlock Holmes's archenemy?
- Irene Adler
- Dr Watson
- Inspector Lestrade
- Professor Moriarty
Moriarty appears in only two of the original Holmes stories, yet he is one of fiction's most famous villains. Conan Doyle created him specifically to kill Holmes at the Reichenbach Falls. Holmes describes him as 'the Napoleon of crime' — a genius who controls London's criminal underworld like a spider in a web.
13. Which mystery novel by Agatha Christie is the best-selling of all time?
- Death on the Nile
- Murder on the Orient Express
- The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
- And Then There Were None
Originally published in 1939, 'And Then There Were None' has sold over 100 million copies, making it the world's best-selling mystery novel and one of the best-selling books of any genre. Ten strangers are lured to an island and murdered one by one — its influence on horror and mystery fiction is immeasurable.
14. What real forensic technique was first used to solve a murder case in 1892 in Argentina?
- Blood spatter analysis
- Ballistic matching
- DNA profiling
- Fingerprint identification
Inspector Eduardo Alvarez matched a bloody fingerprint on a doorpost to Francisca Rojas, who had murdered her two children and blamed a neighbour. This was the first time fingerprints were used to solve a crime. Argentina became the first country to rely on fingerprinting as its primary identification method.
15. Which fictional detective, created by Raymond Chandler, works as a private eye in 1930s-40s Los Angeles?
- Mike Hammer
- Sam Spade
- Philip Marlowe
- Lew Archer
Marlowe first appeared in 'The Big Sleep' (1939) and defined the hard-boiled detective archetype: tough, world-weary, morally upright in a corrupt world. Chandler's vivid similes became legendary — 'She had a face like a Sunday school picnic' — and his prose elevated crime fiction to literature.