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A troubled young man commits the perfect crime - the murder of a vile pawnbroker whom no one will miss. Raskolnikov is desperate for money, but convinces himself that his motive for the murder is to benefit mankind. So begins one of the greatest novels ever written, a journey into the criminal mind, a police thriller, and a philosophical meditation on morality and redemption.
The first of Dostoevsky's masterworks, "Crime and Punishment" presents the powerful story of Raskolnikov, who reasons that intellectually "superior" men like himself can and must transcend conventional moral law. To test his theory, he devises the perfect murder. What follows is a nightmare world of bitterness and torment, and one of the most gripping crime stories of all time.
Dostoevsky contends with Tolstoy for the title of being the greatest Russian novelist. Although his work exhibits less narrative drive than that of Tolstoy, he demonstrates immeasurably greater psychological insight, especially into the minds of the unbalanced. Crime and Punishment is a novel which can change the reader's life. Unexpectedly readable, with occasional bizarre humour, it takes a theme of great simplicity - Student Raskolnikov kills a pawnbroker and her sister and is then torn apart by his conscience - and endows it with extraordinary surprises, each one more consistent with character than a more conventional solution might have been. A clash of very different people thrown together in an unusual circumstance produces, at length, a sense of inevitability and resolution. Strongly recommended to all cocksure murderers and self-satisfied policemen, among others. (Kirkus UK)
