Bombshells and Bullets Trivia Quiz

Answer: Sue Grafton

"My name is Kinsey Millhone. I am a private investigator, licensed by the state of California. I am thirty-two years old, twice divorced, no kids. The day before yesterday I killed someone and the fact weighs heavily on my mind..." Wow! That is the opening line to "A is for Alibi" (1982) and it is the way we are introduced to Sue Grafton's iconic shamus Kinsey.

Like that introduction, Kinsey is a woman of "rare spunk and independence". She talks tough, she is tough but, for all the world, she looks like a damsel in distress. She lives in garage, rides around in a decrepit Volkswagen, cuts her hair with toe-nail scissors, she's a bag full of nerves and has a single dress in her wardrobe. That aside she is quixotic and loyal to her clients and her dedication to her case cannot be questioned.

Kinsey's beat are the streets of Santa Teresa/Santa Barbara, coincidentally, the same area that is patrolled by Ross Macdonald's Lew Archer.

Author Sue Grafton started her "Alphabet" series in 1982 and had plans to see it through to "Z is for Zero". She didn't quite get there, passing away in 2017, a little while after "Y is for Yesterday" was published. Her family have advised that Sue would have been horrified at the thought of using a ghost writer (seriously, the pun was not intended) to complete the series... in their eyes, the series concluded at "Y".

Answer: Dashiell Hammett

Nora's story actually starts with her husband Nick, who was previously the number one detective for the Trans-American Detective Agency and, like his creator, Dashiell Hammett, once worked for the Pinkerton agency. Nick marries Nora, an extremely wealthy heiress, and promptly retires. The pair engage in sharp (and smart) repartee, lots of alcohol and solving crime... "The important thing is the rhythm. Always have rhythm in your shaking. A Manhattan you shake to fox-trot time, a Bronx to two-step time, a dry martini you always shake to waltz time." I will admit that that line is from the film "The Thin Man" (1934), but it serves to stress my point about the alcohol.

The pair first appeared in Hammett's novel "The Thin Man", also in 1934, on which the film was made. However, it was the performances of, and chemistry between, William Powell and Myrna Loy on the screen that popularised them and turned the characters into household names. After three films Hammett bowed out and sold the rights to the couple for $40,000, which would equate to a couple of million dollars in today's terms. Hammett also created a range of screen stories which were turned into screenplays by other writers. These would appear as a collection in 2012, titled "The Return of the Thin Man".

(Footnote). The "Thin Man" series became so popular that many would mistake William Powell as the "thin man". In truth, the "thin man" was the murder victim in the first novel.

Answer: Dana Stabenow

Kate first appears in "A Cold Day for Murder" (1992) which deservedly won the Edgar Award. When we first meet Kate, she is working as an investigator for the District Attorney's office in Anchorage, Alaska. She proves to be star for the DA's office and doesn't go out on her own until half a dozen books into the series. During this time, she'd been badly injured by a child molester, from which she bears a scar from ear to ear, and her lover is murdered.

She retires to the Alaskan wilderness with a half-wolf, half-husky dog named Mutt, a bull moose and a grizzly bear for neighbours. She has a strong bond with family, and it is this relationship that draws her back into investigative work.

Dana Stabenow is an American author who, apart from crime/mystery novels, has also written science fiction and historical adventure stories. An active author since 1991, she also has a Nero Award for mystery fiction to go with her Edgar.

Answer: Joan Hess

Arly Hanks appears for the first time in "Malice in Maggody" (1987). She has returned to her home-town (Maggody) in Arizona, from New York, after enduring a rather messy divorce, where she is the town's Chief of Police. Incredibly, for a town with a population of 755, there are a lot of terrible things going on. Arly is feisty and has a no-nonsense air about her. However, the same cannot be said for her assistant (and deputy) Paulie, who is definitely not the sharpest tool in the shed.

Arly is the brainchild of Joan Hess who is also the author of the "Claire Malloy" series of books and, under the name of Joan Hadley, the "Theo Bloomer Mystery" series. Joan was nominated for the Agatha Award on five separate occasions, winning it once.

Answer: Marcia Muller

Sharon McCone broke new ground in the female detective genre. In her early books she is a hard-nosed little so-and-so who is very street savvy. As the series progresses, we find that she develops a tendency to get too close to her clients. In some respects, this balances out her stubbornness and that tough woman exterior.

With the introduction of Sharon in "Edwin of the Iron Shoes" (1977), Marcia Muller essentially produced the first liberated female private detective of the modern era. In doing so, she laid the groundwork for a slew of female private eyes to follow. Among the list of her admirers is the great Sue Grafton, who indicated that "Marcia Muller is the founding mother of the contemporary female hard-boiled private eye." Marcia would be presented with "The Eye," the Private Eye Writers of America Lifetime Achievement Award, in 1993, for her sustained contribution to the genre.

Answer: Karen Kijewski

Karen's first novel "Katwalk" (1998) won a slew of awards and introduced us to her heroine Kat Colorado. And that novel certainly deserved the kudos that it received. Kat was a complex character who had a tough time of it growing up ... she lost her little sister, never knew her father and her mother was a raving alcoholic.

The problem with the series is that none of this is mentioned after the first book and the potential complexity that she'd offered to readers disappeared in the process. Kat goes from journalism to bartending (strange occupation for one with an alcoholic mother) to detecting... and this shows. She regularly walks into obvious traps and is constantly pulled out of the mire by her "squeeze" Hank, a detective with the Las Vegas Police Department.

That said she is a quirky character who dislikes high heels and has a thing about male chest hair. Her creator, Karen Kijewski, is a former English teacher who worked as a bartender (hmmm... mystery deepens) while trying to establish herself as a novelist.

Answer: Faye Kellerman

Author Faye Kellerman is a practicing Orthodox Jew, and she has instilled those qualities into her character Rina Lazarus. Rina is the daughter of Hungarian holocaust survivors who spent some time working in Israel. She moved to Los Angeles to complete her studies after the death of her first husband. There she meets her second husband, Peter Decker, a Los Angeles Police Department sergeant, which leads her into a life of solving crime.

Rina first appears in "The Ritual Bath" (1986) and by 2022 she and her husband have appeared in 27 Faye Kellerman stories.

Answer: J.A. Jance

Joanna Brady appears in 1993 in the novel "Desert Heat". Hers is a happy life, with a 9 year old daughter and a loving husband who is looking to be the new Sheriff of Cochise County in Arizona. He is shot, killed and labelled a dirty cop. Joanna, however, knows murder and knows a cover-up when she sees one... and so she starts the hunt for her husband's killers.

So starts the adventures of Joanna Brady who takes over her husband's potential position as Sheriff. Despite not having a law enforcement background she develops into a formidable operative over the course of 22 novels (to 2022).

Judith Jance, the creator of Joanna Brady, is a prolific author, having written in excess of seventy novels. As well as Brady, she has created a series of stories featuring a retired Seattle Police detective, J.P. Beaumont and Los Angeles news reporter, turned mystery solver, Ali Reynolds. She manages to intersect Beaumont and Brady in two of her stories, "Partner in Crime" (2003) and "Fire and Ice" (2009).

Answer: G. G. Fickling

Bimbo! If this were a word association test and you threw "Honey West" at me, that would be my response. And it is not a difficult leap to make. I read Ms West when I was a teenager, she was billed as "the sexiest private eye ever to pull a trigger", she was blonde, beautiful, 38-22-36 in a series of novels full of innuendo and she spent as much time with her clothes off as she spent chasing criminals.

I will acknowledge that the risqué humour and the style that it was written in would have met its demise a long time ago and it certainly would struggle to survive in today's politically correct environment. Honey was introduced in "This Girl for Hire" (1957), at a time when women were supposed to be the perfect housewife and, whilst she may not have been the poster girl for female empowerment, she certainly was a breath of fresh air. That said, she was still written as a damsel and, in every novel, she needed rescuing by her faithful sidekick and boyfriend Johnny Doom.

"Honey West" would spawn a TV series, created by Aaron Spelling for ABC in 1965. Unfortunately, it was also the time of "The Avengers" and "The Man from U.N.C.L.E." and the producers made every effort to match them. Honey was turned into an Emma Peel clone who was laden with gadgets and stayed in touch with her boyfriend (now known as Sam Bolt) via a radio hidden in her lipstick case... spare me. Oh, and she kept her clothes on.

The character was created by G. G. Fickling, which was a pseudonym for the writing team of Forest and Gloria Fickling. The GG were Gloria's initials (Gloria Gautraud) and they were used to try and hide the sex of the author. They would write eleven "Honey West" stories and three spin-offs featuring detective Erik March, who appeared alongside Honey in her first novel and, later, her final story, "Stiff as a Broad" (1971).

Answer: Patricia Cornwell

We are introduced to Dr. Kay Scarpetta in "Post Mortem" (1990), Patricia Cornwell's debut novel. Kay is the Chief Medical Examiner for the Commonwealth of Virginia, a snappy dresser, who loves to cook Italian (which she does from scratch, including bread) and runs around in a flashy Mercedes Benz. Whilst she is not a detective, she certainly should be.

She resigns from her position in the 11th book in the series, "The Last Precinct" (2000), and becomes a free lance operator, but is recalled to the Department years later in "Trace" (2004), by her replacement to assist in a troublesome case.

Her creator, Patricia Cornwell, made her name on the Kay Scarpetta series (26 books by 2022), but has also been the author of the Andy Brazil / Judy Hammer, Win Garano and Captain Chase series of novels. She has sold in excess of 100 million books and won numerous awards for her work.