Mystery Quizzes

Welcome! Looking for a fun quiz? Here’s a compilation of the mystery quizzes from my Mystery Monday series, which featured a classic detective and included a detective clip1 short quiz for fun. While the series was ongoing, the answers were revealed in the following week’s Mystery Monday installment. I’ve collected the first six sets here. If you’re stumped, feel free to check out the links to the answers!

by Sidney Paget, via wikimedia commons (CC)

From the Sherlock Holmes post:

1. Sherlock Holmes is partly modeled after a person in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s life. His name was:

O) Han Solo
P) Dr. Joseph Bell
Q) Dr. Joseph Whittingham
R) Oliver Wendell Holmes

2. Agatha Christie’s detective, Hercule Poirot, favored this method of detection:

U) examining physical evidence, such as footprints and tobacco ash

V) using the little gray cells

W) beating a confession out of the murderer

X) relying on eyewitness testimony

3. Nancy Drew had two friends (who were probably jealous of her cool red roadster!) who acted as her sidekicks and assisted in her investigations. They were:

D) Porgy and Bess
E) Bess and George
F) George and Ned
G) John and Yoko

4. True or False: the character of Charlie Chan was never played by an Asian in the films.

5. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was not knighted for his creation of the Sherlock Holmes stories, but for something much more important to the empire. What was it?

Answers to the above can be found in the Charlie Chan post. Which brings us to the next set of questions:

Warner Oland as Charlie Chan, by permission of corbisimages.com

1. Who were the smartest of the Scooby-Doo gang?

L) Scooby and Shaggy

M) Velma and Fred

N) Daphne and Fred

O) Batman and Robin

2. Who is Agatha Christie’s best-known female sleuth? (hint: she likes to knit)

Mrs. Beeton
Jessica Fletcher
Miss Pym
Miss Marple

3. True or False: Sherlock Holmes was once bested by a woman.

4. True or False: one of the classic British detectives wore a monocle.

5. What famous fiction private eye said: “The cheaper the crook, the gaudier the patter”?

I) Sam Spade

J) Phillip Marlowe

K) Mickey Spillane

L) Raymond Chandler

Answers to the above can be found in the Miss Marple post. Which brings us to the next set of questions:

knitting

1. Jessica Fletcher, a mystery writer/amateur detective on the long-running Murder, She Wrote, lived in which town (whose per capita murder rate would have been the despair of local real estate agents)?

J) Ann Arbor, MI

K) Intercourse, PA

L) Cabot Cove, ME

M) Martha’s Vineyard, MA

2. Nate the Great, a “soft-boiled” kid detective from a popular children’s series, eats a favorite food when he needs to think out a case. What is it?

Q) hot dogs

R) pancakes

S) Doritos

T) broccoli

3. What experience during World War II helped Agatha Christie learn so much about poisons?

4. True or False: Sherlock Holmes was married at one point.

Answers to the above can be found in the Nick and Nora Charles post. Which brings us to:

After the Thin Man, 1936. By permission of corbis images.

1. What is the name of Nick and Nora Charles’ dog?

Spike
Sherlock
Asta
Astro

2. What made the t.v. detective series Columbo different?

The murderer is shown planning and committing the crime at the beginning of the episode.
Peter Falk has a glass eye.
Half the cast of Star Trek appears as a guest star at one time or another.
Columbo uses high-tech equipment.

3. True or False: Edgar Allan Poe wrote detective stories.

4. What nationality was Hercule Poirot, and why did Agatha Christie make that choice?

Answers to the above can be found in the Mrs. Pollifax post. Which brings us to:

1. What was the profession of the Hardy boys’ father?

policeman
lawyer
detective
plumber

2. What percent cocaine solution did Sherlock Holmes inject when bored between cases?

O) 20%

P) 75%

Q) 5%

R) 7%

3. What was a favorite pastime of Nick and Nora Charles?

drinking
painting
making whoopee
sight-seeing

4. This detective said: ”Warning. Assholes are closer than they appear.”

I) Charlie Chan

J) Sam Spade

K) Miss Marple

L) Ace Ventura

For answers to the above, go to the Hercule Poirot post. Which brings us to:

mustache

1. Perry Mason was a lawyer-detective created by:

G.K. Chesterton
Dorothy Sayers
Rex Stout
Erle Stanley Gardner

2. The detective Nero Wolfe was known for:

his obesity
his reclusiveness
his love of orchids
all of the above
none of the above

3. True or False: Agatha Christie went on archeological digs.

4. There was a mysterious incident in Agatha Christie’s life. In her early adulthood, she:

T) was accused of murdering her first husband

U) disappeared for 11 days and when she was found had no memory of the time

V) had charge of the hospital pharmaceutical dispensary, in which a large quantity of poison disappeared

W) was rumored to have an illegitimate child

For answers to the above, go to the Nancy Drew post. Which brings us to:

1. Where did Sherlock Holmes keep his pipe tobacco?

in an urn on the mantel
in his violin case
in the toe of a Persian slipper
he didn’t smoke, you moron

2. Conan Doyle couldn’t decide if Watson was shot in the arm or the leg while serving as a doctor in the war (each limb is mentioned in the stories). In what war was Watson wounded?

Crimean War
Boer War
Desert Storm
Second Anglo-Afghan War

3. Author Earl Derr Biggers created which fictional detective?

Charlie Chan
Judge Dee
Nero Wolfe
Hercule Poirot

4. True or False: Miss Marple debuted in Christie’s The Mysterious Affair at Styles.

For answers to the above, go to the Hardy Boys post, which brings us to:

1. What character made his first appearance in a 1939 issue of Detective Comics?

Spiderman
the Green Hornet
Batman
Scooby-Doo

2. True or False: Raymond Chandler was a Pinkerton.

3. One of the following is NOT a rule of Golden Age detective fiction, as famously listed by literary critic Ronald Knox (in a preface to a 1929 collection of detective stories). Which is it?

A) No more than one secret room or passage is allowable

B) The butler should be the culprit

C) No Chinaman must figure in the story

D) Twin brothers, and doubles generally, must not appear unless we are duly prepared for them

4. How many steps lead up to the quarters of 221B Baker Street?

For answers to the above, go to The Three Investigators post.

Bonus question:

What trademark tune does Columbo whistle (beginning with the episode “Any Old Port in the Storm”) which the producers worked into the musical theme?