The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time

Vintage Children's Classics

Summary

Fifteen year old Christopher is about to embark on an investigation...

Lots of things are mysteries. But that doesn't mean there isn't an answer to them.

It was 7 minutes after midnight. The dog was lying on the grass in the middle of the lawn in front of Mrs Shears' house. Its eyes were closed. It looked as if it was running on its side, the way dogs run when they think they are chasing a cat in a dream. But the dog was not running or asleep. The dog was dead.

This is Christopher's murder mystery story. There are also no lies in this story because Christopher can't tell lies. Christopher does not like strangers or the colours yellow or brown or being touched. On the other hand, he knows all the countries in the world and their capital cities and every prime number up to 7507. When Christopher decides to find out who killed the neighbour's dog, his mystery story becomes more complicated than he could have ever predicted.

'Outstanding... a stunningly good read' Observer

'A superb achievement. He is a wise and bleakly funny writer with rare gifts of empathy' Ian McEwan

**ONE OF THE GUARDIAN'S 100 BEST BOOKS OF THE 21st CENTURY**

Reviews

  • Wondrous...brilliantly inventive...dazzling. Not simply the most original novel I've read in years - it's also one of the best
    The Times

About the author

Mark Haddon

Mark Haddon is a writer and artist. His bestselling novel, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, was published simultaneously by Jonathan Cape and David Fickling in 2003. It won seventeen literary prizes, including the Whitbread Award. In 2012, a stage adaptation by Simon Stephens was produced by the National Theatre and went on to win 7 Olivier Awards in 2013 and the 2015 Tony Award for Best Play. In 2005 his poetry collection, The Talking Horse and the Sad Girl and the Village Under the Sea, was published by Picador, and his play, Polar Bears, was produced by the Donmar Warehouse in 2010. The Pier Falls, a collection of short stories, was also published by Cape in 2016. To commemorate the centenary of the Hogarth Press he wrote and illustrated a short story that appeared alongside Virginia Woolf's first story for the press in Two Stories (Hogarth, 2017). His most recent novel, The Porpoise, was published by Chatto & Windus in 2019.
Learn More

Sign up to the Penguin Newsletter

For the latest books, recommendations, author interviews and more