An Apple Books Classic edition.

Fyodor Dostoevsky’s intense novel uses the trappings of a taut thriller to excavate some of the darkest moral questions of the human experience.

Impoverished ex–law student Rodion Raskolnikov is at odds with himself. He’s wildly intelligent but can’t seem to outwit his own desperate circumstances. That is, until he decides to rob and murder an underhanded pawnbroker. After all, he thinks, by ridding the world of her cruelty, he’s committed a benevolent act.

But even as Raskolnikov is justifying himself in the grandest terms, the true moral weight of his actions is already stalking him through the shadowy streets of Saint Petersburg—and his own tortured subconscious. Grimy and enthralling, Crime and Punishment pits reason against principle, rationality against heart.