There is the father, Feodor Pavlovich, rich, dishonest and debauched, and his three legitimate sons: Mitia, impulsive, proud, savage; Yvan, intellectual, refined, intransigent; Alyosha, sincere, pious, naive. And then there is the illegitimate son, Smerdiakov, a cynical libertine living as a servant at his father's house. One of them will be parricide. A full and flamboyant novel, The Brothers Karamazov brings together a police intrigue, several love stories, dazzling theological and metaphysical presentations and unforgettable characters torn apart by their inner conflicts. Through a family, it is also the unvarnished picture of a Russia prey to doubt, torn in its moral and spiritual values by the advent of a materialistic modernity. No doubt the masterpiece of Dostoevsky.