The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Book | Mark Haddon
A refreshing take on the mystery genre, complete with a dog murderer, an autistic teen detective, and plenty of math.
If Sherlock Holmes traded Watson in for rat, was only 15, and developed Asperger's, you'd have Christopher Boone. He doesn't understand most facial expressions, relieves stress with recreational quadratic equations, and won't rest until he solves the mystery of who killed his neighbor's dog with a garden fork. With charming candor, the British teen narrates this bittersweet whodunit, explaining his utterly logical analysis of illogical human crimes every step of the way. He illustrates that many "mysteries" are in fact natural phenomena through the use of a mathematical equation. He diagrams the intersection of time and space. Yet even this logical precision cannot solve the greatest mystery to Boone or anyone else for that matter: Why does human emotion drive people to act irrationally and harmfully? It's not a question that can be answered with "Colonel Mustard in the billiards room with the wrench," but it is one that makes Mark Haddon's 2003 novel a belly-laughing, tear-shedding read that is anything but elementary, my dear Watson.
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