Crime & Punishment is one of the greatest & most readable novels ever written. From the beginning we are locked into the frenzied consciousness of Raskolnikov who against his better instincts is inexorably drawn to commit a brutal double murder. From that moment on we share his conflicting feelings of self-loathing & pride of contempt for & need of others & of terrible despair & hope of redemption: & in a remarkable transformation of the detective novel we follow his agonised efforts to probe & confront both his own motives for & the consequences of his crime. The result is a tragic novel built out of a series of supremely dramatic scenes that illuminate the eternal conflicts at the heart of human existence: most especially our desire for self-expression & self-fulfilment as against the constraints of morality & human laws; & our agonised awareness of the world's harsh injustices & of our own mortality as against the mysteries of divine justice & immortality.