Quintin Jardine
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40 free Quintin Jardine trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Quintin Jardine has been publishing crime fiction since 1993, and his books now fill three series. At the centre is Bob Skinner, the Edinburgh policeman who climbs from the head of CID to the very top of the force, then finds that retirement brings no peace at all. This quiz covers the Bob Skinner novels from the early cases to the recent ones, the lighter Oz Blackstone mysteries, the Primavera Blackstone books set on the Spanish coast, and the standalones. Expect questions on plots, victims, settings and recurring characters, plus a few on the author's own life before fiction. It is written for readers who have followed the series for years and for newcomers working out which book to pick up next. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so a wrong guess still tells you something about the story.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In Quintin Jardine's novels, the narrator Oz Blackstone is said to bear an uncanny resemblance to which Hollywood actor?
Keanu Reeves
Keanu Reeves is the running joke of the series: Oz grows so famous that, in the author's telling, Reeves ends up being the one who resembles him.
Q 02In Quintin Jardine's A Coffin for Two, set on the Costa Brava, Oz and Prim try to authenticate a masterpiece by whom?
Salvador Dalí
Salvador Dalí is the name attached, and the previously unknown work was bought by a gullible client at a highly unconventional auction.
Q 03Quintin Jardine's The Roots of Evil opens with two men killed in Edinburgh on which night of the year?
Hogmanay
Hogmanay is the night ex-policeman Terry Coats and Griff Montell are murdered, dragging Sir Bob Skinner away from the New Year celebrations.
Q 04In Quintin Jardine's Game Over, the prime suspect in a supermodel's murder is defended by which relative of Bob Skinner?
His daughter
His daughter, Alex, leads the defence, so parent and child work opposite sides while the old police team builds the case against her client.
Q 05After retiring from the police, Quintin Jardine's Sir Robert Skinner takes charge of what kind of organisation?
A media group
A media group is the surprise second act: by Deadlock the former chief constable heads an international organisation, later given a Spanish base.
Q 06Which Quintin Jardine novel has a top crime writer found dead in the author tent at Edinburgh's book festival?
Fatal Last Words
Fatal Last Words turns the Edinburgh International Book Festival into a crime scene, and a second victim suggests the authors themselves have become targets.
Q 07Quintin Jardine's For the Death of Me opens with Oz Blackstone watching Roman Abramovich's yacht from a mansion where?
Monaco
Monaco is where Oz keeps one of his three homes, until a struggling author sells him the rights to a novel for $50,000 and springs a trap.
Q 08In Quintin Jardine's Skinner's Festival, a blast during the Edinburgh Festival rocks which famous thoroughfare?
Princes Street
Princes Street is the target, and a faction claiming to want separation from Britain takes responsibility, though it proves to be a highly professional team.
Q 09In Quintin Jardine's Mathew's Tale, Mathew Fleming returns to Lanarkshire in 1818 after heroic service at which battle?
Waterloo
Waterloo made Mathew a hero, but after seven years away he is a ghostly presence in Carluke, and a murder soon sets him on a journey of vengeance.
Q 10Which nickname does detective Harold Haddock carry throughout Quintin Jardine's Bob Skinner crime novels?
Sauce
Sauce is the name Haddock keeps as he rises to Detective Superintendent, still turning to his old boss as a mentor when an inquiry runs into the sand.
Q 11Crime writer Quintin Jardine was born in which Lanarkshire town, whose football club he still supports?
Motherwell
Motherwell is where what he calls his escape tunnel began: he left in 1968, surfaced briefly in a neighbouring town and then moved east for good.
Q 12Which subject did crime novelist Quintin Jardine study at Glasgow University, although he never graduated?
Law
Law was the official subject, though he jokes that he really studied snooker at Glasgow and saw he would never turn professional at either.
Q 13Before writing crime fiction, Quintin Jardine began his working life in 1964 as a trainee in which trade?
Journalism
Journalism came first: he trained on his hometown paper, then seven years later joined the Government Information Service.
Q 21Quintin Jardine's Skinner's Ordeal begins with which disaster that kills the British and American Defence Secretaries?
A mid-air explosion
A mid-air explosion sends a plane plunging from the Scottish skies, and the detective leading the inquiry is himself soon left on the brink of death.
Q 22In Quintin Jardine's Skinner's Mission, which business owned by villain Jackie Charles is torched with a body inside?
A car showroom
A car showroom goes up in flames, but the charred body is Charles's wife Carole, which puts the detective on the same side as his old enemy.
Q 23In Quintin Jardine's Head Shot, Bob Skinner's wife's parents are found strangled at a lakeside cabin in which US state?
New York
Q 14Long a Conservative, Quintin Jardine stood unsuccessfully for which party in a 1999 East Lothian council election?
The SNP
The SNP won him over around the 1997 general election, after his backing for devolution estranged him from the Tories, but he later left it as too left wing.
Q 15Quintin Jardine divides his time between Spain and which East Lothian village, his home since the early 1970s?
Gullane
Gullane became home three years after he left his birthplace, and he has lived there ever since while keeping a second base on the Catalan coast.
Q 16Quintin Jardine keeps a second home in which Costa Brava town, the setting of his novel On Honeymoon with Death?
L'Escala
L'Escala is, as he puts it, the only north-facing town on the Costa Brava, celebrated for its anchovies and notorious for a north wind, the Tramuntana.
Q 17Skinner's Rules, Quintin Jardine's 1993 debut, was nominated for which prize for the best first crime novel?
John Creasey Award
John Creasey Award recognition came at once for the book that introduced Bob Skinner, then a Detective Chief Superintendent heading Edinburgh's CID.
Q 18Which publisher, part of Hachette, has issued every one of Quintin Jardine's crime novels?
Headline
Headline also gave his hero a billing: its marketing team called Bob Skinner Scotland's toughest cop until the author asked them to widen the claim to Britain.
Q 19Which Quintin Jardine standalone is styled as the ghosted autobiography of a half-Scottish, half-Spanish journalist?
The Loner
The Loner follows Xavi from an Edinburgh childhood with a ferocious grandmother, through a short football career, into newspaper work.
Q 20In Quintin Jardine's Skinner's Round, a letter sent to a newspaper quotes a legendary curse laid down by whom?
Witches
Witches are said to have cursed anyone who desecrates their place of worship, and the anonymous letter arrives a day after a murder at a new golf club.
New York State is where he must identify the bodies, before linking the deaths to three other killings too professional to be burglaries gone wrong.
Q 24In Quintin Jardine's Stay of Execution, Edinburgh plans a huge rally to welcome home which fictional native son?
The Pope
The Pope in question is the invented John the 25th, an Edinburgh native, and the police must make security for his homecoming bulletproof.
Q 25In Quintin Jardine's Death's Door, the two young women murdered in ritual-style killings share which profession?
Artists
Artists are the targets, and when one victim's father turns out to be millionaire businessman Davor Boras, the Home Office, MI5 and the CIA all step in.
Q 26In Quintin Jardine's Hour of Darkness, a murdered woman washes up on which island near the mouth of the River Forth?
Cramond
Cramond Island is where the body is found, and the dead woman's name stirs unwelcome memories for Bob Skinner, by then based in Glasgow.
Q 27In Quintin Jardine's State Secrets, who is found in her Westminster office with a letter opener through her skull?
The Prime Minister
The Prime Minister is attacked hours before a controversial statement, and Bob Skinner, who happens to be in the building, gets forty-eight hours to crack the case.
Q 28In Quintin Jardine's A Brush with Death, poisoned millionaire Leo Speight was a national hero in which sport?
Boxing
Boxing made Speight a champion and a rich man, so a long list of lovers and friends stood to gain when he was found dead at his Ayrshire mansion.
Q 29In Quintin Jardine's Cold Case, the reopened Body in the Quarry murder of thirty years earlier had which victim?
A priest
A priest, and a popular one, was found dead in a frozen quarry, and new evidence now threatens the reputation of Bob Skinner's old mentor, Jimmy Proud.
Q 30In Quintin Jardine's Blackstone's Pursuits, what is Oz Blackstone's job when he is hired to find a missing half million?
Private investigator
Private investigator Oz, billed as a private enquiry agent, expects a healthy finder's fee but instead finds the would-be embezzler with a knife in his back.