Arriving at the flat where Pavel lodged with a widow named Anna Sergeyevna Kolenkina and her young daughter, Matryona, Dostoyevsky discovers that his stepson's personal belongings have been confiscated by the police.

Remaining in Petersburg to wait for the release of his stepson's diaries, letters and other writings from the police, Dostoyevsky finds himself entering into an affair with Anna Sergeyevna.

As the university students riot and set fire to the city, Dostoyevsky sits down and begins to write a fictionalised account of events.

The antagonist in the book, who shares many conversations with Dostoyevsky, is Sergey Nechayev, real-life leader of the Nechaevists, a clandestine group of Nihilist terrorists.

[1] Patrick McGrath, writing for The New York Times, concluded that the novel was "dense and difficult, a novel that frustrates at every turn" and without "any clear narrative resolution".