Quisting the Quisty Quister

As you'll know by now, if you've read A Murder To Die For , I have a character called Gavin Quisty. He's a super-smart Detective Chief Inspector with an extraordinary ability to connect facts together; he's kind of a Sherlock Holmes for the internet age - with maybe a smattering of Dirk Gently and Jonathan Creek thrown in for good measure - but quite different from all three. I can't remember how I arrived at his name. It's not, as far as I know, a real surname (although Quist is a Scandinavian surname). I just liked the fact that it had echoes of quiz and questing in it.

So imagine my delight when my good friend, the author Dr Sarah Marr, pointed this out to me yesterday (from "Burgess Unabridged: A New Dictionary of Words You Have Always Needed", Gelett Burgess, 1914).


I think it works rather well, don't you? Did I read the word 'quisty' somewhere in an older book I wonder? No matter. It's mine now! 
Incidentally, I have been working on a series of Quisty short stories, all involving him and his sidekick Kim Woon solving some seemingly impossible crimes. I may release them at some point in the future.