Agatha Christie: The Author Speaks Quiz

Answer: "From the fishmonger, because I know they'll be fresh"

Agatha Christie goes on to explain, "The universal opinion seems firmly established that there is a magic source of ideas which authors have discovered how to tap." Understandably enough, she elaborates a little on the topic, making it clear that she does NOT go to Harrods for "idea shopping".

Answer: "I suppose you take most of your characters from real life?"

"No, I don't. I invent them. They are MINE." She argues that her characters have to be original because they have to do exactly what she wants them to do.

Answer: 5

Linnet, Louise, Salome Otterbourne, Simon, and Jackie, even though the last two technically do not occur ON the Nile, but on dry land. I hope the wording of the question did not confuse you - I was merely playing with the title.

Answer: The Pale Horse

Narrator Mark Easterbrook goes for a cup of coffee (and a "nice banana and bacon sandwich") and witnesses such a quarrel. And that handful of hair will prove to be more significant than he - or the reader - initially thinks.

Answer: Bobby and Frankie

"You don't know yet who Evans is going to be. Never mind. Evans will come in due course - the title is fixed."
Bobby Jones and Lady Frances "Frankie" Derwent are the young investigators in "Why Didn't They Ask Evans" (alternate title: "The Boomerang Clue"). This one is a standalone novel without any connection to Christie's other series.
Tommy and Tuppence Beresford appear in five novels; Luke Fitzwilliam and Bridget Conway investigate the events occurring in "Easy To Kill" (alternate title: "Murder Is Easy"). Hercule Poirot and Captain Hastings should not require any additional definition.

Answer: Sleeping Murder

In "By The Pricking Of My Thumbs", Tuppence spots the house from Mrs. Lancaster's painting while on a train ride, and her determination to find out more about it leads to the events unfurling during the novel.
In "Easy To Kill", it is Luke's encounter with Miss Pinkerton on the train to London and their ensuing conversation about how easy it is to get away with murder that serves as the opener of the story.
In "The Murder on the Links", Hastings meets his future wife, Dulcie "Cinderella" Duveen, on a train.
Although the murder of Lily Kimble in "Sleeping Murder" occurs because she gets off the train one station early, nothing important happens on the train ride itself.
There are, of course, much more important and dramatic events on trains in Christie literature, such as murders ("Murder on the Orient Express", "The Mystery of the Blue Train"), witnessing murders ("4.50 From Paddington"), or kidnappings ("The Secret Adversary"), but even in the world of Ms. Christie, crimes are not the only important events that happen.

Answer: Lord Edgeware Dies (Thirteen At Dinner)

"Cat Among The Pigeons" is set at Meadowbank, a prestigious girls' school, where someone has started killing teachers.
"The Mirror Crack'd" and "Three Act Tragedy" both feature cocktail parties (with an unexpected death each), and since the setting for "The Mirror Crack'd" is Gossington Hall just outside St. Mary Mead, there is a country village, too.
"Lord Edgeware Dies", on the other hand, is almost entirely set in London (with journeys to Paris and the Duke of Merton's place) and contains two dinners but no cocktail party.
The Caribbean beach mentioned in the quote can be found in "A Caribbean Mystery", a novel featuring Miss Marple.

Answer: The Clocks

It is Edna Brent, the unfortunate secretary, who gets strangled in a telephone booth in "The Clocks" before she can tell anyone of what confused her during the inquest.
Nobody gets strangled in "Crooked House" or "The Seven Dials Mystery" (which doesn't mean that there are no murders), and while there is a murder by strangulation in "Mrs. McGinty's Dead", Laura Upward does not classify as a "girl".

Answer: The Murder at the Vicarage

We have drug smuggling in all three of the incorrect answers: as a subplot in "Evil Under The Sun" and "Peril At End House" and as a rather major plot point in "Hickory Dickory Dock". "The Murder at the Vicarage", the first Miss Marple novel, does not bring any drugs to St. Mary Mead.

Answer: extravaganza

"Can one envisage a fantastic cause? A secret Campaign for Power? Can a maniacal desire for destruction create a new world? Can one go a step further and suggest deliverance by fantastic and impossible-sounding means? (...) It is not an impossible story - it is only a fantastic one."
"Passenger to Frankfurt", published in 1970 as Agatha Christie's 80th book, really is an extravaganza, and very different from Ms. Christie's other books. The basic story is that a bored diplomat lends his passport and boarding ticket to a frightened woman at an airport, which marks the beginning of an impossible - sorry: fantastic - story about world domination, delusions of grandeur, and a crazy countess wanting to bring about the resurgence of the Nazi ideology. (That might actually be the reason why this book was never translated into German.)
We do, however, meet the sleepy Colonel Pikeaway again, who previously appeared in "Cats Among The Pigeons" and "N or M".
I hope you enjoyed this quiz. I was just trying for something a little different...