Joe Goldberg (Penn Badgley) · Anavrin
Joe talks his way into the Anavrin job with Crime and Punishment, Dostoevsky's novel about a man who commits a murder and builds a theory for why he's allowed. Joe carries it like a reference letter.
One still, one stack, every Tuesday morning.
In the closing minutes of season two, Joe is holding Crime and Punishment while he describes the suburbs: "Not every Siberia is cold. Some are 73 degrees and sunny with eco-conscious landscaping." Dostoevsky ends the novel with Raskolnikov exiled to Siberia. Joe ends the season in a cul-de-sac and gives it the same name.
Dostoevsky published it in 1866, and it is about a student who kills a pawnbroker and then spends several hundred pages being argued with by his own conscience. Joe picks the one novel that makes a hiring manager feel smart.
Buy from an indie
Sleuthed by @shelfsleuth · 2026-10-19
Spotted another book in You? Drop the frame. The first 100 become Founding Sleuths.
One still, one stack, every Tuesday morning.
Beck's thank-you gift: The Da Vinci CodeS1 E1
Joe's loaner for Paco: Don QuixoteS1 E1
Mooney's counter: Desperate CharactersS1 E1
Mooney's launch night: Sleeping BeautiesS1 E2
A customer at Mooney's: An American TragedyS1 E7
Paco's book club: FrankensteinSeason 1
Love's welcome gift: Play It As It LaysS2 E1
Anavrin's tables: Daring GreatlyS2 E2
Joe's locker: NostromoS2 E3
Joe steers Ellie to Chandler: Farewell, My LovelyS2 E6
The neighbor by the pool: Brave New WorldS2 E10