The book opens in Swindon, England with an autistic young man, Christopher Boone, discovering a poodle that had been murdered with a fork (garden tool) stuck through it. Christopher finds himself getting arrested when he has trouble answering their questions and hit a police officer when the officer grabs him, as Christopher does not like to be touched. Due to his autism and the circumstances he is given a caution and told that this must never happen again or he would go to jail.
Something else Christopher does not like is the colors yellow and brown. He does not like loud noises. He does like the color red and dyes yellow food red so he can eat it. He loves to count prime numbers and work math problems in his head especially to calm himself down. He plans on taking his maths A levels and physics A levels this year and go to a university someday. He lives with his dad and his mom died a year and a half ago or so.
Christopher is a huge fan of Sherlock Holmes and decides to find out who killed the poodle, Wellington. His teacher at his special school, Siobhan, encourages him in this endeavor and having him write it down in a notebook. When his father finds out about it he tells him to stay out of other people's business. But Christopher takes people at their literal word and he does not know what to make of that, so he keeps going and goes around asking people in the neighboorhood questions. When his dad becomes more specific and tells him to stop investigating the Wellington death, Christopher has already got a suspect: Mr. Spears, the owner's ex-husband. So he decides to ask around about Mr. Spears since that's not asking about Wellington. He ends up finding out more about Mr. Spears than he expected.
When his dad finds his notebook and reads what he has written he becomes quite angry and throws it away. When Christopher goes to look for it in the dustbin it isn't there so he searches the house and finds it in a box in his dad's room along with some letters from his mom written after her death. His dad has been lying to him about a lot of things and in Christopher's world, you don't lie. Christopher reacts recklessly to the new information that has come to light.
Christopher is not an easy young man to take care of as a parent. The closest his parents get to a hug is touching his palm to theirs for a second. But he is easy to love. Christopher's detecting the death of a dog named Wellington will lead him down a path he could never imagine. Will he find out who killed Wellington? Will he be able to trust his father again? What will become of him and his rat Toby? This is an excellent read and a very accurate portrayal of someone with autism. The title comes from a Sherlock Holmes story where he solves the mystery because the dog does not bark in the nighttime because he knew the culprit. It fits in nicely with Christopher's love of Holmes and the mystery of the dog's death. I highly recommend this book.
Link to Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Curious-Incident-Dog-Night-Time-Contemporaries-ebook/dp/B000FC1MCS/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1513602658&sr=8-1&keywords=the+curious+incident+of+the+dog+in+the+nighttime
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