Mystery / Thriller / Detective Literature Quiz held on 23-Oct-2019 for and at Champaca Bookstore Library and Café, Bangalore. Questions by Shom Biswas, QM Akhila Phadnis

1. Champaca Quiz
Mystery / Thrillers
23/10/2019

2. Shom Biswas
Proxy by Akhila Phadnis

3. Six Rounds
1. Write here! (5 Qs; 50 points)
 Where you guess 5 names, and get 50 points
2. Mysteries from around the world! (5 Qs; 50 points)
 Non-British, non-American. Maybe-some-Indian
3. Storyline… (5 Qs; 50 points)
 For the readers. Here’s a very well-known storyline. Give me the
name of the book / short story and the writer
4. They’re making a movie! (5 Qs; 50 points)
 Film Adaptations of Mystery and Thriller books – audios and visuals
5. Characters / Locations (5 Qs; 50 points)
 Just identify the character / location from the descriptions /
images

4. Round 1: Write here
(5 Qs; 50 points)
Where you write down 5 names (among many), and get 50 points, 10 for each

5. Write here! (5 Qs; 50 points)
 Choice of either
A. For points, give me the name of 5 Agatha Christie books that are neither Hercule
Poirot, nor Miss Jane Marple. 1 point for each…
 Or
B. Five people who have played Sherlock Holmes on screen, not named Robert Downey
Jr, or Benedict Cumberbatch.

6. Round 2: Mysteries from around the world!
Non-British, non-American. Maybe-some-Indian
10 marks for each right answer

7. Q1
 A simple, gentle half-volley outside the off stump for you to square drive to
the boundary.
 After his beloved daddy died, Mma Precious Ramotswe from Gaborone,
Botswana, sold the cattle that her daddy had left behind, bought an office
space, hired an assistant, and started …. What?
 Exact name please.

8. A1
 The No 1 Ladies Detective Agency
 Alexander McCall Smith

9. Q2
 Henning Mankell’s Inspector Kurt Wallander is one of my favourite fictional
detectives, and perhaps one of the most widely-read of them all.
 Simple question: Inspector Wallnder is based out of which town.
 Exact town name would give you 10 points. (for approximate answers: the big
city close by gives you 5. And the country gives you zero).

10. A2
 Ystad
 It is located 35 miles from the city of Malmo, in Sweden

11. Q3
 Three Pines is a tiny village to the south of Montreal in Québec, Canada, close
to the US border. Maps haven’t discovered it yet.
 It’s minuscule – maybe a couple of hundred people stay there. Rivière Bella
flows through it. The houses there are quaint, and the people kind, warm and
courteous. The food is marvellous - maple-cured back bacon, eggs benedict,
café au lait and desserts at Gabri and Olivier’s bistro; croissants and other
succulent warm bread at Sarah’s boulangerie.
 And this is the location of perhaps my favourite currently active detective
series.
 Name me the Main Investigator / detective in the series, and the writer of the
series, for a full 10 points. 5 each.

12. A3
 Armand Gamache (Chief Inspector of the Sûreté du Québec)
 Louise Penny

13. Q4
 Spanish writer Manuel Vázquez Montalbán was an important cultural figure in
Spanish / Catalan society – he was also a mystery writer of reputation. His
detective Pepe Carvalho was a bit of a genius and also a foodie.
 Pepe Carvalho’s stories were a favourite of Andrea Camilleri, the very famous
Italian mystery writer who passed away a couple of months ago.
 How did Camilleri homage the Pepe Carvalho mysteries in his own novels (of
which, The Shape of Water you must read).

14. A4
 Andrea Camilleri’s detective was named Inspector Salvo Montalbano, named
after the writer Manuel Vázquez Montalbán

15. Q5
 This is one detective that I have not read myself. But I would like to – so let’s
have it!
 ______________ ______ is a detective short-story series in Tamil, written by
Devan in the early 20th century. The novel's protagonist is a not-very-
intelligent bank clerk in middle age, who solves difficult crime puzzles out of
serendipity but is quick to explain as well as take credit. The character
character is sometimes considered to be a comical version of Sherlock
Holmes.
 The stories are known for their distinctive humor set around contemporary
society and eloquently portray the conditions of the modern city of Chennai
during the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s period. Some of the episodes carry subtle
references to World War II as well.
 Fill in the blanks

16. A5
 Thuppariyum Sambu

17. Storyline
For the readers. Here’s a very well-known storyline. Give me the name
of the book / short story and the writer
10 points in all – 5 points for book/story and 5 for writer

18. Q1
 Again, a loosener to start with
 In 1327, Franciscan friar William of Baskerville, accompanied by his young
apprentice Adso of Melk, travels to a Benedictine monastery in Italy to take
part in a theological debate. William of Baskerville is a learned man, widely
revered but also criticized for his unorthodox ways – along with his biblical
knowledge, he is also a logician and is famous for his deductive powers.
 Then the deaths start to visit the abbey. There is an apparent suicide, of a
young monk who was also a famous manuscript illuminator. If you look closely
enough though, the death could not have been a suicide at all. The Abbot of
the monastery asks for the help of William of Baskerville to apprehend the
murderer. William, with Adso in tow, patiently starts to gather the clues to
the mystery, but there is one more murder that soon follows. There are
mysterious occurrences surrounding the deaths, and the Abbot fears demonic
activities. William tries to convince the Abbot that these are the work of
man, and not the devil, but having not gathered enough proof by then, is not
able to convince him.

19. A1
 The Name of the Rose
 by Umberto Eco

20. Q2
 The story starts with Osamu Nonoguchi, a struggling writer of children’s
fiction, describing a recent meeting he had had with his childhood friend and
wildly successful writer, Kunihiko Hidaka. Hidaka would be relocating from
Japan to Canada with his wife the very next day, and he decides to meet his
friend before he is leaving. After meeting Nonoguchi, Hidaka was planning to
complete a short story that he has promised to a magazine before he leaves
for Canada. After that, he would leave his house and stay the night in the
hotel where his wife is staying for the night.
 After meeting Hidaka, Nonoguchi returns to his house. A few hours later, in
the middle of a meeting with his publisher, he is interrupted by a phone call
from his friend, who summons Nonoguchi to his house. Nonoguchi leaves
immediately, and as he approaches Hidaka’s house, he finds it locked and
completely dark inside. Panicking, he calls Hidaka’s wife, Rie, at the hotel.
She comes by, and together they enter the house to see that Hidaka is dead,
strangulated. It’s the archetypal locked-door murder. Or at least that’s what
Nonoguchi’s narration suggests. Indeed, this entire narrative was written
down by him, and later found among his writings by the police.

21. Q2
 Malice
 Keigo Higashino

22. Q3
 1943-44, the months before the Normandy Invasion. The Allied forces plot to
divert the attention of the Axis army and make them believe that the attack
is planned at Calais rather than Normandy, so that they cannot come to the
defence of Normandy during the invasion. They create a fake army base (with
inflatable model tanks and dummy airplanes) in Norfolk, their base closest to
Calais - aerial images would indicate a raid being planned.
 In a seemingly disconnected event, Lucy gets married to David Rose, an RAF
pilot. Misfortune strikes them very soon after, they get into a car accident.
Lucy is unharmed, but David gets both his legs amputated. To recuperate,
they move to the almost uninhabited Storm Island, beyond the Scottish Coast.
Henry Faber is a German spy in Britain. His alias is ‘Die Nadel’– his choice of
murder weapon is the stiletto knife. A shadowy, mysterious figure, he has
been under the radar of the British Intelligence for a long time. He discovers
the ruse of the Calais attack and tries to send the information to Germany a
couple of times through radio or via a courier, but is thwarted.
 He decides that the information is too critical to relay, and that he will travel
to Germany and hand it over.

23. A3
 The Eye of the Needle
 Ken Follett

24. Q4
 The story starts in Barcelona in 1945. Barcelona is still in a state of healing
and rebuilding after the devastation of the Spanish Civil War. Daniel Sempere
is ten years old, and is grieving for his mother who passed a few years ago.
His father, a bookseller, has a secret. He is one of the few patrons of the
Cemetery of Forgotten Books – a secret library in the back-alleys of
Barcelona, a shrine of sorts, of books; exceptional, but forgotten and out of
print. Patrons of this library are the bibliophiles of Barcelona, who have
curated and kept alive this place for ages. New patrons to the library, are
expected to look around and decide on a book, which they will take, protect
and treasure for their lives. The senior Sempere decides to take Daniel to the
library.
 The book Daniel chances upon is the eponymous __ _______ __ ___ ____ by
Julián Carax. The young boy is enthralled by the book, and decides to find
more writings by this writer. Looking around the bookshops of Barcelona, he
finds references to the writer, but no books.

25. A4
 The Shadow of the Wind
 By Carlos Ruiz Zafón
 (Cemetery of Forgotten Books – which is the name of the series, will get you 2
instead of 5)

26. Q5
 Madame L'Espanaye and her daughter have been found dead at their home in
a fictional street in Paris. The mother was found in a yard behind the house,
with multiple broken bones and her throat so deeply cut that her head fell off
when the body was moved. The daughter was found strangled to death and
stuffed upside down into a chimney.
 The murders occurred in a fourth-floor room that was locked from the inside;
on the floor were found a bloody straight razor, several bloody tufts of gray
hair, and two bags of gold coins.
 Several witnesses reported hearing two voices at the time of the murder, one
male and French, but disagreed on the language spoken by the other. The
speech was unclear, and all witnesses claimed not to know the language they
believed the second voice to be speaking.

27. A5
 The murders in the Rue Morgue
 Edgar Allan Poe

28. They’re making a movie!
Film / TV Adaptations of Mystery and Thriller books – visuals
10 points

29. Q1
 On the lines of the previous round…
 Famous private detective Byomkesh Bakshi
and his assistant Ajit are chatting when a
new client Nishanath Sen knocks on the
door. Sen is a middle aged person, an ex-
judge and a rich merchant. He needs
Byomkesh for a very special reason. He is
searching for the details of an old movie
song and the actress who sang it, Sunayana,
as he thinks that she is hiding somewhere
inside his huge nursery, under a fake
identity. Nishanath as a judge hanged at
least eight people, but after his retirement,
due to lingering moral regrets, he has
sheltered a few homeless people, who have
either long criminal records or other
qualities that make them social outcasts.
 Who is the director of this movie?

30. A1
 Satyajit Ray

31. Q2
 The name of this lovely novel, and its
broadway adaptation, is based on a
very famous detective short story.
 In that short story, what was the name
of the murderer?
Spoiler alert!

32. A2
 Silver Blaze
 The Sherlock Holmes story, where (spoiler alert) the murder was done by the
horse, named Silver Blaze.

33. Q3
 Name the famous fictional spy which all three of these have played
James Mason Alec Guinness Gary Oldman

34. Q3
 George Smiley
 …of the Smiley / Karla novels of John Le Carre

35. Q4
 The 1974 movie version of The Murder
On The Orient Express got which
famous movie personality the last of
their three Oscar awards?

36. A4
 Ingrid Bergman

37. Q5
 This famous Coen Brothers movie, Miller’s Crossing,
has its storyline drawn from a novel by one of the
greats of hardboiled mysteries – Dashiell Hammett.
 The name of the book was Red Harvest.
 Who was the chief protagonist (detective) of that
novel.

38. A5
 The Continental Op

39. Characters / Locations
(5 Qs; 50 points)
Just identify the character / location from the description / image

40. Q1
 Name me the location / city. This is in India.

41. A1
 Obviously, Jaisalmer
 The Golden Fortress

42. Q2
 The protagonist, Alan Grant, Inspector of the Scotland Yard, has had a broken
leg while trying to apprehend a criminal. While recuperating in hospital, he is
bored with the same old people, the same old food, and the same old books.
Fiction does not interest him, and the nurses are well-meaning but staid
conversation companions.
 Seeing his plight, his actress friend, Marta Hallard suggests he look at some
portraits —Grant takes pride in being able to identify criminals by looking at
their faces. This interest in faces, supposedly, allows him ‘both a private
entertainment and a professional advantage’. Marta gets him a few portraits
to look at, and one particular face interests him the most. It is the most
‘individual’ of faces, one of a person used to great responsibility and
authority, yet that of a worrier, perhaps even a perfectionist.
 Thus ran one of the greatest detective novels of all time, ‘The Daughter of
Time’, by Josephine Tey
 Question: Whose was the face?

43. A2
 Richard III,
 The last Plantagenet king of England, from the House of York.
 Inspector Grant, through reading of historical accounts and books, solves the
crime and figures out that Richard III did not kill his nephews, the sons of
Edward V, the previous king of England.

44. Q3
 Identify the location that’s greyed out

45. A3
 St. Mary Mead – home to the great Ms Jane Marple

46. Q4
 Here are some details about the key
character of the series
 Ex–Royal Military Police Special
Investigation Branch investigator
 A veteran of the war in Afghanistan
where he lost half of his leg in a bomb
attack
 Illegitimate son of famous rock star
Johnny Rokeby
 And next is a photograph of the actor
that plays the character in the TV series
 Don’t identify the character. Give me the
name of the writer of the series

47. Q4
 Robert Galbraith
 Or
 JK Rowling
 Points for either…

48. Q4
 The Alienist is a super series on detection / mystery, based on the novel of
the same name by Caleb Carr. This is also a period drama, from early 1900s
US / NY.
 Dr. Laszlo Kreiszler the main protagonist of this series, who attempts to nab a
serial killer. Question – who hires him for the detection?

49. A5
 Theodore Roosevelt
 Who was then the police commissioner of NY.

50. Thank You!