Nostalgia City Mysteries

Mark S. Bacon

Category Archives: Mystery writers quiz

11:37 am - January 16, 2013 -

Not whodunit, who wrote it

How do fictional detectives get their names?  Is it the writer’s history?  Are they descriptive of the character’s personality?  What would that say about Joe Nesbo’s  Harry Hole?  Are private eye names designed to be remembered?

Can you remember who created some of the most famous characters in detective fiction?  Try this quiz.  Each question is the name of a fictional detective.  Select the author who created him or her.  Answers next week.

1. Philip Marlowe

a. Robert B. Parker

b. Raymond Chandler

c. Dashiell Hammett

d. Mickey Spillane

 

 

2. Kinsey Millhone

a. Diane Mott Davidson

b. Sara Paretski

c. Susan Wittig Albert

d. Sue Grafton

 

 

3.  Auguste Dupin

a. Edgar Allen Poe

b. Georges Simenon

c. Fodor Dostoyevsky

d. Leslie Charteris

 

 

4. Jackson Brodie

a. Kate Ross

b.  J.A. Jance

c. Amanda Quick

d. Kate Atkinson

 

 

 

5. Sgt. Jim Chee

a. Nevada Barr

b. Robert Barnard

c. Josephine Tey

d. Tony Hillerman

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7:29 am - November 14, 2012 -

Short mystery story writers quiz – part 1

          “Cops, Crooks & Other Stories” contains flash fiction mysteries, certainly not the first time whodunit writers have reduced the genre to a few pages (or a few words).   In fact, many of the most well-known mystery novelists also published also short stories–some short-short stories.  (Which begs the question, are they short mystery stories or mystery short stories or maybe short story mysteries?)  In any event, here (and in the next installment) is a quiz about writers of short mystery fiction.   It’s not too easy.  Answers next time.

 

1.  Known more for mystery novels than short stories, this prolific author wrote hundreds of short stories.  Only Shakespeare’s works have been published more than this author’s.  A mystery play by this author has been running continuously in London since 1952.

a. P.D. James

b. Agatha Christie

c. Josephine Tey

d. Ellery Queen

 

2.  Many of this author’s 200 short stories featured a detective who was a parish priest .

a. G. K. Chesterton

b. Mary Higgins Clark

c. Dorothy L. Sayers

d. Donald Westlake

 

3.  Also an attorney, this British author wrote about a curmudgeonly barrister with a taste for wine.   More than a dozen short story collections featuring this character are in print.

a.  Colin Dexter

b.  Earl Stanley Gardner

c.  John Mortimer

d.  Lawrence Sanders

 

4.  Although this author is known for novels, First Blood and Brotherhood of the Rose, his/her suspense short stories include Dead Image and Black Evening.

a. T.  Jefferson  Parker

b.  Robert B. Parker

c.  Charlotte MacLeod

d.  David Morrell

 

5.  Awards presented by the Mystery Writers of America bear this short story writer’s first name.

a.  Arthur Conan Doyle

b.  Agatha Christie

c.  Raymond Chandler

d.  Edgar Allen Poe

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