4/5 Stars: ‘The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time’ is a Young Adult, Psychological Classic by Mark Haddon; ‘The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time’ speaks bravely, and winningly from inside the sorrows of Autism, specifically Asperger’s Syndrome, though this is never specified. Haddon’s study of the condition is superbly realised; instead Haddon uses his narrator’s innocence as a means of commenting on the emotional and moral confusion in the lives of the adults around him. Autistic people are not easy subjects for novelists. Their interests are prescribed, their experiences static, their interaction with others limited. Haddon ingeniously uses Christopher's admiration for Sherlock Holmes to lead him out of this stasis, not to effect some miraculous ‘cure’, but so that a story can happen. ‘This will not be a funny book,’ says Christopher. ‘I cannot tell jokes because I do not understand them.’ But it is a funny book, as well as a sad one. The protagonist’s compulsive noting of mundane facts provides comedy reminiscent of the best of Adrian Mole, especially in his dealings with the police and his special-needs classmates. And Haddon's inclusion of diagrams, timetables, maps, even maths problems, extends the normal scope of novel-writing and demonstrates the rich idiosyncrasies of the Autistic brain. ‘The Curious Incident’ is published simultaneously for adults and older children; despite its clarity and simplicity, it operates on several levels.