The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time is a novel written by Mark Haddon. The story itself is told from the unique perspective of 15-year-old Christopher Boone, who has mild autism. After discovering the neighbor’s dog dead with a garden fork stuck in its side, Christopher is inspired by his love of Sherlock Holmes books to do so me investigating and write a murder mystery of his own. Despite his father telling him multiple times to “stop doing detective work,” Christopher continues and along the way uncovers much more than who killed Ms. Shear’s poodle.
This book is definitely at the top of my list of favorites. I love that each character is given believable dialogue, personalities, and plenty of depth. The author makes sure that each character plays an important part. Throughout the story, readers continue learning more about each character through the eyes of Christopher, which brings me to another reason why this book is so great. Since the story is told from Christopher’s perspective, readers get a hint of what it’s like to deal with autism, how it affects Christopher’s life, how he deals with it on a daily basis, and how it affects the people around him. His logic on life is interesting as well, such as his unique way of deciding if it will be a good or bad day or why he despises yellow and brown things.
What I love most about this novel is that nothing is cliché or expected. The twists and turns kept coming and had me glued to every page. I was right there with Christopher trying to figure out what was going on and what was going to come next.
Although it is a strange take on a murder mystery novel, this book was excellent and worth the read. I recommend it to anyone who loves a good mystery. Once this book is started, it’s impossible to put down until it’s finished.