Review of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime

The curious incident of the dog in the night-time, by Mark Haddon – the latest book in the “Best Sellers” list – is tells the story of 15 year old Christopher John Francis Boone. Christopher knows all the countries of the world and their capitals, and every prime number up to 7,057. He relates well to animals, but cannot understand human emotions. He lives on patterns, rules and timetables. Then one day, his neighbour’s dog, Wellington, is killed and his carefully constructed universe is threatened.

“The Curious….” is not yet another Catcher-in-the-Rye. Christopher is not a rebel against the establishment. He is a (rather eccentric) genius and loves mathematics. He lives with his father, but is always in an autistic world of his own. His only confidant is his teacher, Siobhan, and his only friend is his pet rat, Toby. He dislikes a lot of things - people touching him, crowds, France, the colours yellow and brown (he refuses to touch anything that is yellow or brown), …and telling lies. Wellington’s death changes his world, and Christopher sets out to solve the murder in the style of his favourite (logical) detective Sherlock Holmes – a decision which leads him on an adventure to London, and learn the truth about his mother. All’s well that ends well, as Christopher gets what he wants.

Haddon’s narrative takes us through the mind of the 15-year old genius, as if one were reading the child’s diary. It has a remarkable freshness. He holds the reader to the book, with his expert weaving of the thoughts of the boy into paper. Christopher is too logical to understand about love and emotion. He looks at the physical world as it is. He cannot comprehend the complexity of the relationships around him. To an extent, Christopher’s selfishness – he just wants to sit for his A Level Maths exam - is impervious to the explosive emotional situations around him – and it is this selfishness that saves him and his family, in the end.

The narrative is interspersed with Christopher’s random thoughts – the universe, the prime numbers, why “The Hound of Baskervilles” is such a great book, The Monty Hall Problem, why the number of frogs in a pond keep varying year by year, and so on. The readers lose themselves in Christopher’s magical world of numbers.

Maybe there have been better works on children, such as “The Catcher in the Rye” or “To Kill a Mocking Bird”. But “The Curious…” is not far behind – it’s definitely a must read.



The curious incident of the dog in the night-time – the title of the book is taken from the Sherlock Holmes story, Silver Blaze. Holmes is investigating the disappearance of the race horse, Silver Blaze.

He brings to the notice of Dr. Watson,”The curious incident of the dog in the night-time”.

Watson says: "The dog did nothing in the night-time."
"That was the curious incident," remarks Sherlock Holmes.