Crime and Punishment is based on Dostoevskys own terrifying experiences of the summary justice of Tsarist Russia and of its cruel penal system. It is a dark tale set in the dingy tenements, backstreets and bars of pre-Revolutionary St Petersburg and concerns the actions of a murderer - Raskolnikov - who, setting himself in the role of a superman of Napoleonic proportions, Crime and Punishment is based on Dostoevskys own terrifying experiences of the summary justice of Tsarist Russia and of its cruel penal system. It is a dark tale set in the dingy tenements, backstreets and bars of pre-Revolutionary St Petersburg and concerns the actions of a murderer - Raskolnikov - who, setting himself in the role of a superman of Napoleonic proportions, decides to commit homicide as a matter of principle. Thus the scene is set for an epic story of carefull criminal investigation, Roskolnikovs entrapment in the tentacles of his own conscience, and the possibility of his enventual salvation through punishment and suffering.