50 Fun Facts About Famous Detectives

Agatha Christie's fussy detective Hercule Poirot is often mistaken for a Frenchman but comes from which country?

Belgium is where Poirot was a celebrated police officer before he fled to England as a wartime refugee.

Scooby-Doo, the cowardly cartoon dog who helps Shaggy and friends unmask fake ghosts, belongs to which breed?

A Great Dane was the brief, but designer Iwao Takamoto drew Scooby with a sloped back, bowed legs and a sloping chin, the opposite of a prize-winning show dog.

Which superhero, nicknamed the World's Greatest Detective, made his debut in issue 27 of Detective Comics?

Batman became so tied to Detective Comics that the whole publisher now goes by its initials, DC.

Which misanthropic TV doctor was modeled on Sherlock Holmes, right down to a home address numbered 221B?

Gregory House treats every illness as a puzzle to crack, and his loyal friend Wilson was conceived as his Watson.

In the 1963 comedy The Pink Panther, which introduced Inspector Clouseau, what is the Pink Panther itself?

A diamond of enormous size carries the name because a flaw at its centre is said to resemble a leaping panther.

Under which shared pen name has a long line of ghostwriters published the Nancy Drew mysteries since 1930?

Carolyn Keene never existed: Mildred Wirt ghostwrote the first Nancy Drew books from outlines by publisher Edward Stratemeyer.

Which American writer is credited with inventing the detective story in 1841 with The Murders in the Rue Morgue?

Edgar Allan Poe set the template with his amateur sleuth Auguste Dupin, who reasons out that an orangutan committed the killings.

Which unusual pet does undercover detective Sonny Crockett keep aboard his sailboat in the television series Miami Vice?

An alligator named Elvis shares the sailboat where Crockett lives, while the undercover detective gets around Miami in a Ferrari.

Which form of identification did Scotland Yard start filing in 1901 so detectives could track repeat offenders?

Fingerprints differ even between identical twins, who share the same DNA, which makes them ideal for telling people apart.

Which Los Angeles homicide lieutenant in a rumpled raincoat keeps turning back to ask suspects one last question?

Columbo wore his star's own shabby raincoat, and the famous parting question began as a quick fix for a scene that ran too short.

Sherlock Holmes shares rooms with his friend Doctor Watson at number 221B on which London road?

Baker Street addresses did not run as high as 221 when the stories appeared, yet fans have mailed letters to the address for decades.

Which musical instrument does Sherlock Holmes play to unwind between cases in Arthur Conan Doyle's stories?

Violin music is how Holmes relaxes, and he also loves hearing the Spanish virtuoso Pablo de Sarasate perform.

Which criminal mastermind with a gift for mathematics grapples with Sherlock Holmes at the top of the Reichenbach Falls?

Professor James Moriarty was created mainly as a device for killing off Holmes, so that Conan Doyle could end the stories.

On which bleak English moor do Sherlock Holmes and Watson hunt a ghostly dog in The Hound of the Baskervilles?

Dartmoor's gloom was researched on foot: Conan Doyle explored the moor in 1901 with a journalist friend who supplied the local legend.

Which actor plays a modern-day Sherlock Holmes opposite Martin Freeman's Watson in the BBC series Sherlock?

Benedict Cumberbatch made only thirteen episodes as Holmes, spread across four series and one special between 2010 and 2017.

Which actor played Hercule Poirot on British television across 13 series that ran from 1989 to 2013?

David Suchet stayed until Curtain, Poirot's last case, by which point every major Christie work featuring the detective had been filmed.

In Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express, what strands the train with a killer and Hercule Poirot aboard?

A snowdrift in Yugoslavia stops the Orient Express, so the murderer has no way to leave and must be one of the passengers.

In which fictional English village does Agatha Christie's elderly amateur sleuth Miss Marple live and solve murders?

St Mary Mead may look sleepy, but neighbours there find Miss Marple's nosiness and habit of assuming the worst in others tiresome.

In which fictional seaside city do teenage brothers Frank and Joe Hardy, the Hardy Boys, solve their mysteries?

Bayport sits on Barmet Bay, where the brothers live with their detective parent Fenton Hardy and their Aunt Gertrude.

Which bald, sharply dressed New York police lieutenant of 1970s television sucks lollipops to cut down on smoking?

Kojak shared his Greek American heritage with actor Telly Savalas, and the lollipop became the character's trademark.

In which state does private investigator Thomas Magnum live in a beachfront guesthouse and drive a borrowed Ferrari?

Hawaii's island of Oahu is the setting for Robin's Nest, the 200-acre estate where Magnum stays at the invitation of its owner, Robin Masters.

Which San Francisco sleuth played by Tony Shalhoub battles obsessive-compulsive disorder and a long list of phobias?

Adrian Monk was a brilliant homicide investigator until the death of his wife Trudy worsened his condition and cost him his badge.

Which mystery novelist from Cabot Cove, Maine, does Angela Lansbury play in the series Murder, She Wrote?

Jessica Fletcher won Lansbury four Golden Globes, and the amateur sleuth's cases range far beyond her small hometown.

Which future action star played a wisecracking Blue Moon agency detective opposite Cybill Shepherd in Moonlighting?

Bruce Willis became a star through the show, which is counted among the first hits to blend comedy and drama into the dramedy.

In which state do detectives Rust Cohle and Marty Hart hunt a killer in the first season of True Detective?

Louisiana was not the first choice: creator Nic Pizzolatto preferred Arkansas, but tax credits lured the production south.

Which model of bright red Ford with a white stripe do television detectives Starsky and Hutch drive?

Gran Torino was the model picked for the pilot, and star Paul Michael Glaser took an immediate and lasting dislike to the flashy car.

Which action film does Detective Jake Peralta of Brooklyn Nine-Nine love so much that he names his son after its hero?

Die Hard is the film Peralta quotes constantly, and his baby is named McClane, shortened to Mac, in honour of its lead character.

In which English university city does the opera-loving Inspector Morse solve murders and drive a classic Jaguar?

Oxford's real colleges were not enough for author Colin Dexter, who invented extra ones such as Lonsdale to host the crimes.

Which actress played Jane Tennison, one of London's first female Detective Chief Inspectors, in the drama Prime Suspect?

Helen Mirren's Tennison confronts sexism inside the police force as well as killers, and rises to Detective Superintendent.

Which New York detective, later a captain, did Mariska Hargitay first play when Law & Order: SVU began in 1999?

Olivia Benson started as the junior partner of Elliot Stabler and climbed rank by rank to command the whole unit.

Which teenage private investigator played by Kristen Bell cracks cases in the seaside town of Neptune, California?

Veronica Mars lived on after cancellation when fans pledged over $5.7 million on Kickstarter to fund a feature film.

Which actor played both Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon and Philip Marlowe in The Big Sleep?

Humphrey Bogart only got to play Spade because George Raft, who was offered the part first, turned it down.

Which author of The Thin Man drew on his years as a real private detective to create Sam Spade?

Dashiell Hammett worked as an agency operative from 1915 to 1922, with time off to serve in World War I, before turning to fiction.

Which pipe-smoking Paris police commissaire solves crimes in 75 novels by the prolific Georges Simenon?

Jules Maigret came to Simenon in a café, where he pictured a powerfully built policeman in a bowler hat and thick overcoat.

Which short, plain Catholic priest created by G. K. Chesterton solves crimes through his insight into human behaviour?

Father Brown was loosely based on a real parish priest from Bradford who had a hand in Chesterton's own conversion to Catholicism.

Which flowers does Rex Stout's stay-at-home New York detective Nero Wolfe tend for four hours a day?

Orchids are his obsession: he keeps about 10,000 plants and employs a full-time orchid nurse, Theodore Horstmann, to help tend them.

Which aristocratic amateur sleuth, a veteran of the trenches, did Dorothy L. Sayers introduce in Whose Body?

Lord Peter Wimsey still has flashbacks to the war, and his servant Bunter, once his sergeant, puts him to bed when they strike.

In which African country does Precious Ramotswe run the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency on the edge of the Kalahari?

Botswana's capital Gaborone is home to Mma Ramotswe, who lives on Zebra Drive and is the country's first female private investigator.

Which author's alphabet series, beginning with A Is for Alibi, follows California private investigator Kinsey Millhone?

Sue Grafton planned to finish with Z Is for Zero but died before writing it, so her family says the alphabet ends at Y.

In which country does Henning Mankell's police inspector Kurt Wallander investigate murders around the town of Ystad?

Sweden's southern province of Scania is his patch, and Kenneth Branagh played him in a British television version.

Which Wilkie Collins novel, featuring Scotland Yard's Sergeant Cuff, set many ground rules of modern detective fiction?

The Moonstone lets its famous sleuth fail at first: Sergeant Cuff leaves the country estate with the theft of the jewel still unsolved.

Which Chicago detective agency, founded by a Scottish immigrant, guarded Abraham Lincoln on an 1861 trip to Washington?

Pinkerton's founder made barrels for a living and sheltered runaway slaves on the Underground Railroad before he turned detective.

Which French criminal turned crime fighter founded the Sûreté and ran the first known private detective agency?

Eugène Vidocq went undercover disguised as an escaped convict, and his life story inspired writers such as Victor Hugo and Balzac.

Which comic-strip police detective created by Chester Gould began wearing a two-way wrist radio in 1946?

Dick Tracy's gadget was upgraded to a wrist TV in 1964, and it may have inspired later smartwatches.

Which private detective with a flamboyant Southern accent does Daniel Craig play in Knives Out and Glass Onion?

Benoit Blanc is the only character who returns from film to film, and each title is borrowed from a song by a British or Irish rock band.

Which 1974 mystery stars Jack Nicholson as J. J. Gittes, a Los Angeles private eye who gets his nose slashed?

Chinatown director Roman Polanski gave himself the cameo as the knife-wielding gangster who cuts the detective's nose.

Which San Francisco police inspector, played by Clint Eastwood in five films, favours a .44 Magnum revolver?

Harry Callahan faced a wider range of villains in the sequels after critics accused the 1971 original of authoritarian undertones.

Which New York private detective, first played by Richard Roundtree, had a theme song that won Isaac Hayes an Oscar?

John Shaft's theme made Hayes the first Black winner of the Academy Award for Best Original Song.

Which fast-talking Detroit police detective does Eddie Murphy play in the Beverly Hills Cop films?

Axel Foley travels to California under the guise of a vacation so he can investigate the murder of his best friend, Mikey Tandino.

Which comedian plays Ace Ventura, a Miami private investigator who specialises in rescuing animals?

Jim Carrey also co-wrote the screenplay, and the 1994 comedy launched his film career.