📚 Crime Mystery Fiction Trivia Questions & Answers
Below are 30 free crime mystery fiction trivia questions with answers — part of Literature trivia on BUZZ. Want a real challenge that adapts to what you know? Play the Literature quiz — no signup needed to start.
30 Crime Mystery Fiction trivia questions
Q1. Who is Sherlock Holmes's brilliant criminal arch-enemy?
Answer: Professor Moriarty
💡 Holmes brands him the 'Napoleon of crime,' the hidden mastermind behind London's underworld.
Q2. Which prolific author created detectives Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple?
Answer: Agatha Christie
💡 Poirot debuted in 1920 and Marple followed a decade later, in 1930.
Q3. Which author created gentleman detective Lord Peter Wimsey?
Answer: Dorothy L. Sayers
💡 Sayers introduced Wimsey in her 1923 debut novel, Whose Body?
Q4. Which author created hardboiled detective Mike Hammer?
Answer: Mickey Spillane
💡 Spillane's Mike Hammer novels were among the best-selling crime fiction of the 1950s.
Q5. Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes is aided by which loyal doctor friend?
Answer: Dr. Watson
💡 Watson narrates 56 of the 60 official Holmes stories.
Q6. Which hardboiled detective, created by Raymond Chandler, narrates 'The Big Sleep'?
Answer: Philip Marlowe
💡 Chandler didn't become a detective-fiction writer until age 44, after losing an oil-company job.
Q7. Dashiell Hammett's private eye in 'The Maltese Falcon' is named what?
Answer: Sam Spade
💡 Hammett said Spade wasn't based on anyone real — he's what real detectives wished they were.
Q8. Which 'Queen of Crime' author created detective Albert Campion?
Answer: Margery Allingham
💡 Campion first appeared as a minor supporting character before becoming Allingham's series lead.
Q9. Which author created defense-attorney detective Perry Mason?
Answer: Erle Stanley Gardner
💡 Gardner, once a practicing lawyer, published 82 Perry Mason novels across four decades.
Q10. Which 1981 Thomas Harris novel first introduced Hannibal Lecter?
Answer: Red Dragon
💡 Red Dragon predates The Silence of the Lambs by six years, though Lecter appears in both.
Q11. Poe's detective Auguste Dupin solves a gruesome double murder on which Paris street?
Answer: Rue Morgue
💡 Poe published the 1841 tale decades before real police detective bureaus even existed.
Q12. Georges Simenon's pipe-smoking Paris police commissioner detective is named who?
Answer: Maigret
💡 Simenon wrote over 80 Maigret novels and stories between 1931 and 1972.
Q13. Which Gillian Flynn thriller centers on Nick Dunne's wife vanishing on their anniversary?
Answer: Gone Girl
💡 The novel opens on the couple's fifth, traditionally "wood," wedding anniversary.
Q14. What subgenre traps suspects and a killer inside one sealed, inaccessible space?
Answer: Locked-room mystery
💡 It's also called an "impossible crime" story, since the setup looks physically impossible.
Q15. G.K. Chesterton's crime-solving priest, first appearing in 1910, is named who?
Answer: Father Brown
💡 Chesterton wrote 53 Father Brown stories across more than two decades.
Q16. A false clue planted to mislead a mystery's detective or reader is called what?
Answer: Red herring
💡 The term comes from an old trick of dragging a smelly smoked fish to throw hounds off a scent.
Q17. Which New Zealand author created Scotland Yard detective Roderick Alleyn?
Answer: Ngaio Marsh
💡 Marsh wrote 32 Alleyn detective novels between 1934 and 1982.
Q18. Which author created poet-detective Adam Dalgliesh of Scotland Yard?
Answer: P.D. James
💡 Dalgliesh is unusual among fictional detectives for also being a published poet.
Q19. Which author created small-town detective Inspector Wexford?
Answer: Ruth Rendell
💡 Rendell introduced Wexford in her 1964 debut novel, From Doon with Death.
Q20. Wilkie Collins's 1868 'The Moonstone' centers on the theft of what?
Answer: A diamond
💡 T.S. Eliot called it 'the first, the longest, and the best' of English detective novels.
Q21. Britain's classic whodunit board game Cluedo was invented in which decade?
Answer: The 1940s
💡 Inventor Anthony Pratt originally called his murder-mystery board game simply 'Murder!'
Q22. James Ellroy's noir novel 'L.A. Confidential' exposes corruption in what force?
Answer: The LAPD
💡 Ellroy's 1990 novel became an acclaimed 1997 film starring Russell Crowe and Kevin Spacey.
Q23. Who is Nero Wolfe's legman and narrator in Rex Stout's mysteries?
Answer: Archie Goodwin
💡 Wolfe himself rarely leaves his brownstone, so Goodwin does all the fieldwork and narrates every case.
Q24. Which Christie play has run continuously in London's West End since 1952?
Answer: The Mousetrap
💡 It passed its 30,000th performance in March 2025 — the longest run of any play, ever.
Q25. What annual American award, named for Poe, honors the best mystery writing?
Answer: The Edgar Award
💡 The Mystery Writers of America has handed out Edgars since 1946.
Q26. Which pen name concealed cousins Frederic Dannay and Manfred Lee, mystery writers?
Answer: Ellery Queen
💡 The cousins gave their shared pen name to their series detective too, so author and hero share a name.
Q27. Which illustrator first drew Sherlock Holmes in his iconic deerstalker cap?
Answer: Sidney Paget
💡 Conan Doyle's own text never mentions a deerstalker at all — that detail is purely Paget's invention.
Q28. Pen name John le Carré conceals which real-life British intelligence officer?
Answer: David Cornwell
💡 Cornwell worked for both MI5 and MI6 before his novel made him a full-time writer.
Q29. Elmore Leonard's novel 'Rum Punch' was adapted by Tarantino into which film?
Answer: Jackie Brown
💡 Tarantino changed the lead character's race and renamed her from Burke to Brown for the film.
Q30. Tana French's acclaimed crime novels are built around which fictional police unit?
Answer: Dublin Murder Squad
💡 Each Dublin Murder Squad novel narrates through a different detective from the same unit.
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