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50 free Agatha Christie trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
42 free Agatha Christie trivia questions with answers. Agatha Christie sold more than two billion books, and this quiz is for the readers who have worked through a good share of them. Forty-two questions cover Hercule Poirot's little grey cells and his New York Times obituary, Miss Marple's village of St Mary Mead, Tommy and Tuppence, Ariadne Oliver and Captain Hastings, plus the great novels: The Mysterious Affair at Styles, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, Murder on the Orient Express, And Then There Were None, Death on the Nile and Curtain. The life gets equal billing: her Torquay childhood, the hospital dispensary work that taught her poisons, the eleven days she went missing in 1926, the archaeologist she married, the Mary Westmacott pen name, Greenway, and The Mousetrap's record-breaking run. Easy questions ask who Poirot is; hard ones want the hotel where she was found and the play she wrote for Queen Mary. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on Christie and her works, and each question carries the sentence that supports it.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01How many mainstream (non-crime) novels did Christie publish under a pen name?
Six
Her identity was kept secret until a journalist revealed it in 1949, after which she wrote two more.
Q 02In which English seaside town was Agatha Christie born in 1890?
Torquay
She was largely home-schooled there, and later set Peril at End House in and around the town.
Q 03Roughly how many copies have Agatha Christie's books sold?
More than 2 billion
Guinness World Records lists her as the best-selling fiction writer of all time.
Q 04What wartime work gave Christie her expert knowledge of poisons?
Working in hospital dispensaries
In 1977 doctors solved a real thallium poisoning case after recognising symptoms she had described in a novel.
Q 05In December 1926 Christie made international headlines by going missing for how long?
Eleven days
It followed her mother's death and her husband's request for a divorce, and made the front page of The New York Times.
Q 06Where was Christie eventually found after her 1926 disappearance?
A hydropathic hotel in Harrogate
She had registered under the surname of her husband's mistress, Neele, claiming to be from Cape Town.
Q 07Christie's second husband, Max Mallowan, worked in which profession?
Archaeologist
She joined his digs in Syria and Iraq for months each year, which fed novels like Murder in Mesopotamia.
Q 08Under what pseudonym did Christie publish six non-crime novels?
Mary Westmacott
Her identity was kept secret until a journalist revealed it in 1949, after which she wrote two more.
Q 09On a 1922 world tour, Christie and her first husband became among the first Britons to do what?
Surf standing up
They learned prone in South Africa and stood up in Waikiki, staying three extra months to practise.
Q 10In 1971 Christie was promoted to which honour?
Dame Commander (DBE)
Her husband had been knighted three years earlier, so she could also be styled Lady Mallowan.
Q 11In 1955 Christie became the first person to receive which honour from the Mystery Writers of America?
The Grand Master Award
She was also co-president of the Detection Club from 1958 until her death.
Q 12Christie's Devon holiday home on the River Dart, now owned by the National Trust, is called what?
Greenway
She transferred the 278-acre estate to her daughter Rosalind around 1959.
Q 13Hercule Poirot is a refugee from which country?
Belgium
Christie was inspired by Belgian refugees living in Torquay during the First World War.
Q 21The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is famous for what twist?
The narrator is the murderer
Dr Sheppard conceals his guilt without ever writing anything untrue; the Crime Writers' Association voted it the best crime novel ever in 2013.
Q 22In which year was Christie's novel about the death of Roger Ackroyd published?
1926
It had been serialised the previous year in the London Evening News as 'Who Killed Ackroyd?'.
Q 23Under what title was Poirot's Orient Express case first published in the United States?
Murder in the Calais Coach
It avoided confusion with Graham Greene's Stamboul Train, which had been retitled Orient Express in the US.
Q 14What does Poirot famously call the mental faculties he relies on to solve cases?
The little grey cells
His other catchphrase, from the very first novel, is 'order and method'.
Q 15Poirot was the only fictional character to receive what unusual honour from The New York Times?
A front-page obituary
It ran after Curtain, his final case, was published in 1975.
Q 16Poirot's London home and office is Flat 203 at which address?
Whitehaven Mansions
The building's Art Deco symmetry suited his obsessive tidiness.
Q 17Which actor played Poirot on ITV for 25 years, and called the character 'obsessive-compulsive'?
David Suchet
Ustinov and Branagh played him on film; Sophie Hannah has written authorised continuation novels since 2014.
Q 18In which novel did Poirot make his first appearance?
The Mysterious Affair at Styles
Christie wrote it in 1916, mostly on Dartmoor, and it was rejected by two publishers before John Lane took it.
Q 19In Christie's first novel, Emily Inglethorp is poisoned with what?
Strychnine
The method came straight out of Christie's own work in the hospital dispensary.
Q 20Poirot's friend and narrator Captain Hastings emigrates to which country after marrying?
Argentina
He and Dulcie Duveen took up ranching there after The Murder on the Links.
Q 24How many stab wounds does the victim Ratchett have in Murder on the Orient Express?
Twelve
The train is stuck in a snowdrift between Vinkovci and Brod, so the killer must still be aboard.
Q 25The abduction plot in Murder on the Orient Express was inspired by which real 1932 crime?
The Lindbergh baby kidnapping
An innocent maid employed by the family was suspected, which echoes the novel's Armstrong household.
Q 26In Death on the Nile, Poirot travels aboard which steamer?
The Karnak
It tours from Shellal to Wadi Halfa, and heiress Linnet Doyle tries to hire him at Aswan.
Q 27In The A.B.C. Murders, the killer's first victim, Alice Ascher, is killed in which town?
Andover
Betty Barnard follows in Bexhill and Sir Carmichael Clarke in Churston, each with a railway guide left beside them.
Q 28And Then There Were None is set on an isolated island off the coast of which county?
Devon
Eight guests are invited, joined by two servants, and the nursery rhyme dictates the order of deaths.
Q 29About how many copies has And Then There Were None sold?
More than 100 million
It is the world's best-selling mystery novel and one of the best-selling books of any kind.
Q 30In And Then There Were None, who turns out to be the killer?
Mr Justice Wargrave
The retired judge fakes his own death and confesses in a message in a bottle.