Great Detectives of Crime Fiction – answers and explanations
Here are the answers to all 15 questions in the Great Detectives of Crime Fiction quiz, each with a short explanation. From Baker Street to Edinburgh: how well do you know fiction's greatest sleuths? Haven't played yet? Take the quiz first and compare your score.
Play the quiz · 15 questions1. At which London address do Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson live?
Answer: 221B Baker Street
Holmes and Dr Watson share rooms at 221B Baker Street; today the Sherlock Holmes Museum on Baker Street uses that address.
2. Which novelist created both Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple?
Answer: Agatha Christie
Agatha Christie wrote 33 novels featuring Hercule Poirot and 12 featuring Miss Marple, and is the best-selling novelist of all time.
3. Which phrase does the raincoated TV detective Columbo use to spring his key question?
Answer: Just one more thing
Peter Falk's rumpled Lieutenant Columbo is famous for turning back at the door with "just one more thing". Creators Richard Levinson and William Link said the line began as a quick fix for a scene that ran too short.
4. What is Inspector Morse's rarely revealed first name?
Answer: Endeavour
Colin Dexter's Oxford detective is named Endeavour Morse, after Captain Cook's ship HM Bark Endeavour. The name was finally disclosed in the 1997 episode Death Is Now My Neighbour via an anagram clue, and later gave the prequel series Endeavour its title.
5. Which army captain acts as Hercule Poirot's loyal friend and chronicler?
Answer: Captain Hastings
Captain Arthur Hastings is Hercule Poirot's best friend and narrator, introduced in The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920). Agatha Christie modelled him on Sherlock Holmes's Dr Watson, and he was played by Hugh Fraser in the ITV series.
6. Sherlock Holmes has a brilliant but lazy older brother. What is his name?
Answer: Mycroft
Mycroft Holmes, seven years older than Sherlock, first appears in 'The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter' (1893); Sherlock says Mycroft's deductive powers surpass his own but he has no ambition or energy for legwork. Mycroft is a government official and founder of the Diogenes Club.
7. What nationality is Agatha Christie's moustachioed sleuth Hercule Poirot?
Answer: Belgian
Hercule Poirot is Belgian, a retired Belgian police officer who came to England as a refugee during the First World War. Agatha Christie introduced him in her 1920 debut novel The Mysterious Affair at Styles.
8. Which loyal sergeant partners Inspector Morse on his Oxford cases?
Answer: Lewis
Detective Sergeant Robbie Lewis, played by Kevin Whately opposite John Thaw, assists Morse in Colin Dexter's novels and the ITV series set in Oxford (1987-2000). Lewis later got his own spin-off, where his sergeant was James Hathaway.
9. In which American city does Raymond Chandler's private eye Philip Marlowe work?
Answer: Los Angeles
Raymond Chandler set all seven completed Philip Marlowe novels, starting with The Big Sleep (1939), in and around Los Angeles, using the fictional Bay City as a stand-in for Santa Monica.
10. Which Swedish author created the hacker-sleuth Lisbeth Salander?
Answer: Stieg Larsson
Swedish journalist Stieg Larsson created hacker Lisbeth Salander for his Millennium series; he died of a heart attack in 2004 aged 50, before The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was published in 2005.
11. In which Scottish city does Ian Rankin's Inspector John Rebus solve his cases?
Answer: Edinburgh
Ian Rankin's Detective Inspector John Rebus works in Edinburgh, the Scottish capital, from his 1987 debut Knots and Crosses to the 2024 novel Midnight and Blue. The books' gritty 'tartan noir' version of the city draws fans on walking tours of real pubs and streets.
12. Hercule Poirot credits his success to using his 'little grey' what?
Answer: Cells
Agatha Christie's Belgian detective Hercule Poirot repeatedly credits his 'little grey cells' - his brainpower - rather than physical clue-hunting. The catchphrase runs through the novels from his 1920 debut in The Mysterious Affair at Styles onward.
13. Conan Doyle's The Hound of the Baskervilles is set on which English moor?
Answer: Dartmoor
The Hound of the Baskervilles, serialised in The Strand from 1901 to 1902, takes place largely on Dartmoor in Devon, around Baskerville Hall and the deadly Grimpen Mire. Conan Doyle stayed at Princetown on Dartmoor while working on the story.
14. The Nordic noir series The Bridge links Copenhagen with which Swedish city?
Answer: Malmö
The Nordic noir series Bron/Broen (The Bridge, from 2011) begins with a body left on the Oresund Bridge, which connects Copenhagen with Malmo, forcing Swedish detective Saga Noren and her Danish counterpart to investigate together.
15. Which novel first introduced Raymond Chandler's private eye Philip Marlowe?
Answer: The Big Sleep
Raymond Chandler's first novel, The Big Sleep (1939), introduced Los Angeles private eye Philip Marlowe, hired by the dying General Sternwood. Chandler built it by reworking his earlier pulp stories 'Killer in the Rain' and 'The Curtain'.