"Crime and Punishment" by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

My first Russian, I have to admit... I think I read the first 80 pages (leading up to the CRIME) or so in one go, it's that captivating. After the deed is done (the PUNISHMENT part...), the book loses a bit of its momentum, I found.
Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikoff, a talented law student in St. Petersburg in the late 19th century, lives in a shabby, small room in a boarding house, broke and down in the dumps. He quit his courses, quit the teaching that earned him some money and can hardly be bothered to get up from is sofa. The chamber maid of the house comes to clean up and brings him tea and food out of pity. He doesn't see people and his health is deteriorating. His fiance died a while ago. His only friend is the fellow student Razoumikhin whom he hasn't seen in a long time. Apart from that, the only people he cares about are his mother and sister who don't live near him.
He sometimes visits an old, despicable woman, a rich moneylender, to trade the few valuables he has for money. For some time he has been developing an idea, a plan so daring that he doesn't really think it possible to actually carry it out. A plan to rid him of his financial problems once and for all... He doesn't pity the old woman or think anyone would miss her - but still, does he have the courage? Is it actually possible for him to do such a thing, can he really be that determined to transform an idea into action? It is a bit like an exciting and ambitious self-experiment. For a while he carries these thoughts while at the same time he becomes more and more delirious as his health declines. When one day he finds the perfect circumstances to commit the deed, he has to make a quick decision....