Whodunnit? Trivia Quiz

Answer: Agatha Christie

Miss Marple is probably the most well-known amateur detective in the history of crime fiction, not least because of the famous film adaptations starring Margaret Rutherford and Angela Lansbury (who also portrayed Jessica Fletcher). Her cases are murders, often under unusual circumstances, and more often than not, the victims were poisoned.

Answer: Arthur Conan Doyle

Where Miss Marple is the iconic amateur detective, Sherlock Holmes is the equally iconic representation of the private investigator. The four novels featuring him as the main character all show him solving murder cases with his impeccable logic, but the main body of work involving him is short stories of which there are over fifty.

His most famous quote - "Elementary, my dear Watson" - is actually a misquote: While both "Elementary" and "my dear Watson" are frequent utterances of Holmes, they never appear together in this way.

Answer: Colin Dexter

Inspector Morse represents the third main archetype of detective story protagonists - that of the police detective. His cases are universally murders, often involving victims whose bodies had been found in the open and sometimes unidentified. Thirteen novels and a short story collection make up the body of work around this detective; all of the novels have been adapted for television in the 1987-1993 series "Inspector Morse".

Answer: G.K. Chesterton

Father Brown is somewhat unusual for a detective character in that the author never wrote a complete novel about him. Instead, his over fifty cases are all short stories, published in five volumes from 1911 to 1935. His method is rather intuitive and directly opposed to the logical approach favored by Sherlock Holmes and often, he makes use of his expertise as a confessor in understanding the motives and circumstances of a murder.

Answer: Dorothy L. Sayers

The novels about Lord Wimsey are set in the late 19th and early 20th century. Wimsey is purely a hobby detective, solving mysteries - often, but not always murders - for his own pleasure and satisfaction. Sayers' last Wimsey novel, "Thrones, Dominations" was unfinished at the time of her death and completed only over 40 years later, in 1998, by Jill Walsh, who has since written several more novels about him.

Answer: Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe's Dupin has appeared in just three short stories, "The Murders in the Rue Morgue", "The Mystery of Marie Rogêt" and "The Purloined Letter". His place in literary history is still assured by the simple fact that these are the very first known instances of the detective fiction genre.

Answer: Raymond Chandler

Philip Marlowe is an amateur investigator featured in seven novels by Raymond Chandler as well as in one of his unfinished works (later completed by Robert B. Parker who also wrote an authorized sequel to the first Marlowe novel "The Big Sleep", bringing the total to nine). Besides the main case, many Marlowe novels also highlight corruption and betrayal and include social criticism.

Answer: P.D. James

Adam Dalgliesh is a typical gentleman detective, working for the Metropolitan Police Service. He is the main protagonist of fourteen P.D. James novels as well as appearing in another two. Most of his cases are rather brutal instances of murder.

Answer: Georges Simenon

With seventy-six novels and almost thirty short stories, the body of material about Jules Maigret is among the largest of any fictional detective. His cases are almost universally murders and, quite often, his investigations consist of a long and seemingly futile hunt for clues followed by a sudden inspiration upon which the puzzle is quickly pieced together and the culprit brought to justice.

Answer: Ian Rankin

Inspector Rebus was created by Scottish author Ian Rankin in 1987 and has since appeared in over 20 novels. From 2000 to 2007, several of these have been adapted for television in the "Rebus" series. Most of Rebus's cases involve murder, but he has also worked on missing person cases and sex crimes.