Murder by the Book Trivia Quiz

Answer: Hercule Poirot

This Hercule Poirot novel generated some controversy when first published in 1926 because of Agatha Christie's choice of murderer, utilising a device that had not been used before in crime fiction. I won't elaborate for fear of spoiling it for those of you who have not read it yet. "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd" was adapted into the play "Alibi" by Michael Morton in 1928. Agatha Christie was dissatisfied with "Alibi", which stimulated her to write a play of her own, "Black Coffee".

Answer: Miss Jane Marple

"Murder at the Vicarage", published in 1930, was the first novel to feature Miss Jane Marple. Miss Marple is a keen observer of human nature and solves crimes using "village parallels" - that is, the people who figure in the story inevitably remind her of similar people in her village and she believes they will typically act the same way.

Some sources claim that the character of Miss Marple was inspired by Agatha Christie's grandmother, but in her autobiography, Agatha Christie stated that the character was partly inspired by her grandmother's friends, "her Ealing cronies" as Christie put it, and partly by the character of Caroline Sheppard in "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd".

Answer: Tommy and Tuppence

This is the third of five works featuring Thomas (Tommy) Beresford and Prudence (Tuppence) Beresford nee Cowley. In this novel, a British agent is murdered and his last words are heard as "N or M Song Susie", which leads Tommy and Tuppence to the seaside hotel/boarding house, Sans Souci.

The title is taken from the Anglican "Book of Common Prayer" where it is used as the answer to the question "What is your name?" N or M means "name or names" and is derived from the Latin "nomen vel nomina". The identities of the German spies N and M are revealed at the end of the novel.

Answer: Other

This novel evolved from a Hercule Poirot short story, "Yellow Iris", which Agatha Christie later expanded into a novel called "Remembered Death", later renamed "Sparkling Cyanide". She replaced Poirot as the detective with Colonel Race, a character who had appeared in three previous novels - "The Man in the Brown Suit", "Cards on the Table" and "Death on the Nile".

This was the fourth and last novel to feature Colonel Race.

Answer: Other

"Death Comes as the End" stands out as an interesting departure from Agatha Christie's usual works. It is the only one of her novels which does not take place in "modern" times, i.e. in the 20th century, the time in which Christie lived and wrote. It is set in ancient Egypt, in Thebes in 2000 BC.

There is no detective or sleuth. However, there is a protagonist, Renisenb, and most of the story is told from her viewpoint. There is a very high body count. There are eight murders, making it second only to "And Then There Were None" in terms of the number of victims.

Answer: Hercule Poirot

"Murder on the Orient Express" is one of the most popular Christie novels. It was first published in 1933 in the form of a serial in the "Saturday Evening Post" entitled "Murder in the Calais Coach". It was published in book form the following year under the title "Murder on the Orient Express". It is a classic "locked room" mystery. The passengers on the train are stuck in a snowdrift. A man is murdered and there is no possibility that the murderer(s) could escape in the snow; ergo he, she or they are still on the train.

Agatha Christie loved travelling on trains. When she travelled on the Orient Express, she took notes regarding the layout of the train and its fixtures to ensure accuracy in her story. The Orient Express stopped operating in 2009 but in Agatha Christie's day, it travelled the length of continental Europe, from Paris to Istanbul.

Answer: Hercule Poirot

In 1934, Agatha Christie wrote a short story called "Death on the Nile". She used the title again for her 1937 novel. Apart from the title, the two stories are not the same. The plots were quite different and the short story featured Parker Pyne as the sleuth, whereas this novel featured Hercule Poirot.

In this classic "locked room" mystery, Hercule Poirot manages to break the seemingly unbreakable alibis of the murderous conspirators.

Answer: Miss Jane Marple

Agatha Christie liked choosing titles and devising plots that fitted in with other literary works, such as nursery rhymes, Shakespeare and the Bible. As well as the title, some of the characters and plot points are drawn from the children's nursery rhyme "Sing a Song of Sixpence".

In this story, Miss Marple becomes involved in the investigation of the murders connected to the Fortescue family of Yewtree Lodge when her former maid is one of the victims.

Answer: Miss Jane Marple

The British title, "4.50 from Paddington", refers to a train departing from Paddington Station at 4.50 p.m. The U.S. publishers changed the title to "What Mrs McGillicuddy Saw", thinking that Americans would not understand the title's train reference.

It is what Mrs McGillicuddy saw on that train, i.e. a murder, that subsequently brought Miss Marple into the story. She does, of course, solve the case, but not before there are another two victims.

Answer: Miss Jane Marple

"Sleeping Murder" is the last case of Miss Marple. Agatha Christie wrote it during the early years of World War 2 but the story was not published until after her death. She died in January 1976 and the novel was published the following October, making it the very last Christie novel published.

The plot involves a "murder in retrospect", a murder which was witnessed by a child and forgotten for a couple of decades until events caused the child, now grown up, to start remembering.

Answer: Tommy and Tuppence

"The Secret Adversary" introduces the characters of Thomas (Tommy) Beresford and Prudence (Tuppence) Cowley. They are childhood friends who meet up again as adults after the Great War (World War I). Jobs are scarce so they start their own business, advertising themselves as "Young Adventurers Limited - willing to do anything, go anywhere - no unreasonable offer refused".

They promptly become mixed up in a hair-raising adventure with the mysterious Mr Brown.

Answer: Tommy and Tuppence

"Partners in Crime" is the second work to feature Tommy and Tuppence Beresford. Rather than being a novel, it is a collection of short stories. The official Agatha Christie website (agathachristie.com) states that "Each of these short stories contain subtle parodies of a contemporary crime writer (or character) from the Golden Age of detective stories".

These included Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes and R. Austin Freeman's Dr Thorndyke.

Answer: Other

"Crooked House" does not feature any of Agatha Christie's usual sleuths. The story is narrated by Charles Hayward, whose "fiancee", Sophia Leonides, has asked him to investigate the suspicious death of her grandfather. Sophia indicated that she cannot marry him until the matter is cleared up and that he could provide an unbiased view of the family, who are the principal suspects.

As it happens, Charles does not deduce "whodunnit". The solution to the murders is provided to Charles and Sophia via a letter and notebook left to them.

Answer: Other

The novel "Endless Night" was published in 1967. Twelve years later, Agatha Christie recycled the basic plot in her short story "The Case of the Caretaker", which featured Miss Marple. However, this novel does not feature Miss Marple; in fact, there is no specified sleuth.

The story is told through the eyes of a narrator and it is he who reveals the solution to the murders; six in total.

Answer: Hercule Poirot

"Hallowe'en Party" is a Hercule Poirot novel which also features his friend, mystery novelist Ariadne Oliver. This is one of six novels which features both characters.

Poirot and Mrs Oliver are helping out at a children's Hallowe'en party when one of the young guests claims to have seen a murder when she was younger, but states that she didn't realise the significance of what she had witnessed at that time. The other guests clearly do not believe her and yet, shortly thereafter, she is found drowned in a bucket of apples. So clearly someone believed her and was unsettled by her claim.

In 2023, "Hallowe'en Party" was adapted into a movie called "A Haunting In Venice". Perhaps I should qualify that by saying "loosely adapted" as it bears little resemblance to the original novel. As a stand-alone movie, it was watchable. As an adaptation, it was unsatisfying, to say the least.

Answer: Tommy and Tuppence

"By the Pricking of My Thumbs" is the fourth of the five books Agatha Christie wrote about Tommy and Tuppence Beresford. Unlike Hercule Poirot and Miss Jane Marple, Agatha Christie allowed Tommy and Tuppence to age in "real time". In the first book, "The Secret Adversary", published in 1922, they are quite young, probably in their early twenties, since the text states that "their united ages would certainly not have totalled forty-five".

In this book, published in 1968, they are described as an elderly couple who have been married over thirty years.