Christopher John Francis Boone knows all the
countries of the world and their capitals and every prime number up to 7,057. 
He
relates well to animals but has no understanding of human emotions.
He cannot stand to
be touched. Although gifted with a superbly logical brain, Christopher is
autistic.
Everyday interactions and admonishments have little meaning for him. Routine,
order, and predictability shelter him from the messy wider world. Then, at
fifteen, Christopher's carefully constructed world falls apart when he finds
his neighbor's dog, Wellington, impaled on a garden fork, for which he is
initially blamed.
Christopher decides that he will track down the real killer and turns to his
favorite fictional character, Sherlock Holmes, for inspiration. But the
investigation leads him down some unexpected paths and ultimately brings him
face-to-face with the dissolution of his parents' marriage. As he tries to deal
with the crisis within his own family, we are drawn into the workings of
Christopher's mind.
And herein lies the brilliance of Mark Haddon's choice of narrator: The most
wrenching of emotional moments are chronicled by a boy who cannot fathom
emotion. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time is
one of the freshest debuts in years: a comedy, a heartbreaker, a mystery story,
a novel of exceptional literary merit that is great fun to read.