The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time is a 2003 novel by British writer Mark Haddon. It won the 2003 Whitbread Book of the Year[1] and the 2004 Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best First Book.[2] Its title is a quotation of a remark made by the fictional detective Sherlock Holmes in Arthur Conan Doyle's 1892 short story 'Silver Blaze'.


The story is written in the first-person perspective of Christopher John Francis Boone, a 15-year-old boy who describes himself as �a mathematician with some behavioural difficulties� living in Swindon, Wiltshire. Although Christopher's condition within the autism spectrum is not stated explicitly within the novel, indeed, the words autism or Asperger's are not used by Christopher at all, the summary on the book's inside cover or back cover (depending on the edition) describes it as Asperger syndrome, high-functioning autism, or savant syndrome. In July 2009, Haddon stated on his blog that the book is not specifically about Asperger Syndrome and that he is not an expert on the subject.[3]