"Will I really - I mean, really - actually take an axe, start bashing her on the head, smash her skull to pieces?.. Will I really slip in sticky, warm blood, force the lock, steal, tremble, hide, all soaked in blood... axe in hand?.. Lord, will I really?" This new translation of Dostoevsky"s "psychological record of a crime" gives his dark masterpiece of murder and pursuit a renewed vitality, expressing its jagged, staccato urgency and fevered atmosphere as never before.