Russian Crime Fiction

I'd never really thought about Dostoevsky as a crime writer - even though he wrote Crime & Punishment - it always somehow seemed to be literature and not crime... but I came across this short piece on a site called Fictiondb and it made me rethink my view on what constitutes a crime, mystery, or thriller/suspense novel.


The site lists the following Russian authors as the literal godfathers of Russian crime writing...Anton Chekhov, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Nicolai Gogol, Maxim Gorky, Vladimir Nabokov, Vil Lipitov, Alexander Pushkin, Lev Sheinen, Boris Sokoloff and Leo Tolstoy


I haven't picked up a Russian writer in anger for years.... maybe it's time I revisited these guys... My last connection to Russia was a 1989 Dnepr Mt-11, which was produced in Kiev - which was then a part of the Soviet Union... but not quite Russia.... Think of it as a Ural, but with more character and less moving parts...


I digress...