陀思妥耶夫斯基的小说具有犯罪小说的明显特征。从题材看，陀思妥耶夫斯基经常将犯罪事件作为小说故事的主线，并具有详尽地描写犯罪过程和犯罪心理的倾向。从形式上看，陀思妥耶夫斯基的小说明显受到了当时欧洲流行的惊险犯罪小说的影响，但他将自己的创作个性注入了这一略显陈旧的体裁，成功地将其现代化。他对犯罪小说的创作达到了“幻想性的现实主义”境界，预示着现代小说的开端；他对犯罪心理的深刻认识前所未有，不仅如此，他还发掘了新的犯罪主人公类型，从而大大提升了犯罪小说这一小说类型的深刻性。陀思妥耶夫斯基以自己天才的创造力拓展了犯罪小说这一传统体裁的疆域，使这一体裁小说具备了成为文学经典的可能。

Some of Dostoefusky's Novels are typical crime novels. In some of his most famous novels, he told some real criminal stories, and even described the details of the criminal events. His profound understandings of the criminal psychology are praised by critics. Though his arranging of his novels seems careful less, his work successfully promoted the type of crime novel, by his creating of the new methods of writing about criminal events which he called ‘imaginary realism’, and his discovering of a new type of criminals, who committed crimes for some philosophical reasons. According to some traditional thoughts, crime novels are not so important in novel’s history, while Dostoefusky's fantastic work expanded the horizon of crime novel, made it possible to become classical pieces.