And Now For Some Fun: Mystery Games on the Web

Below are links to some mystery games, many quizzes, some of them trivia. The quality of these can vary. Sometimes the answers require an unfair exactness or mind-reading, e.g., Sherlock Holmes sidekick: Dr. John H. Watson. (Not John Watson or Doctor Watson. Other times the trivia quiz creator was more generous in allowing alternate answers. I've tried to present the best up front and for those desperate for more, they can follow the links to further games. (Note: the term mystery gets used for a number of purposes in these quizzes, such as Who is this mystery actor? when his identity is a mystery, not that he had a career in mysteries.)

At Sporcle, they have a variety of mystery quizzes. (They have some wonderful quizzes in other fields, if you enjoy challenges). Some of their most popular mystery quizzes are:

Fill in the blank, name of famous mystery, author given.
For example:  Study in _____ Conan Doyle

Another fill in the blank of famous mysteries.

Here you are asked to unscramble the title of Agatha Christie works.

Sherlock Holmes Trivia Game - with a current BBC show emphasis

The quiz "101 Crime Novels" gives you ten minutes to fill in the names of the 101 best crime novels as determined by the Mystery Writers of America. Just typing their names in ten minutes is a challenge.

You can match up murderers to works of literature. 

Here you name the mystery/thriller author given the first letter and a clue.

For fans of Sue Grafton and the alphabet in general, A is for ____?

On a more serious note, you are asked to fill in the ten most common murder weapons (US) or murders/assassinations to the cities where they took place. 

Sporcle has many more mystery quizzes, including some submitted by readers which are of a lesser quality. 

Games and quizzes from other sites include:

I found "Know Your Noir" to be diverting. The goal is to identify 20 noir films using single iconic shots.

How Well Do You Know These Famous Women Authors?
In my case, not well enough.

Hitchcock, Christie and Conan Doyle are the subject of this ten question trivia quiz.

There are other mystery games, such as the "Solve This Mystery" variety, sometimes contrived, always an acquired taste. A good example is:

Can You Solve This Mystery?

If you want to sort among a variety of games that call themselves mystery or have a mystery theme (which noir character are you?) here is the general link to the playbuzz site. 

 Martin Hill Ortiz, also writing under the name, Martin Hill, is the author of A Predatory Mind. His latest mystery, Never Kill A Friend, is available from Ransom Note Press. His epic poem, Two Mistakes, recently won second place in the Margaret Reid/Tom Howard Poetry Competition. He can be contacted at mdhillortiz@gmail.com.