When they speak of the great Russian psyological novel authors, it isn't just a convenient label. In Crime & Punishment, the internal unravelling of the protagonist was rendered with such realism, it was almost to the point where I could understand him and his skewed point of view. It was that well written. This was profoundly disturbing and depressing while reading it, since the protagonist committed a grisly murder. It's one thing to make a character come alive, but another to tease out the threads of his mind and gently lead you to the same place he is going. Just made me feel like I understood the mechanics of a broken mind far more than I wanted to. The Road was emotionally impactful to a similar degree but in a more benign way as I had a relationship with the victims in that case.
I agree with your assessment of Crime and Punishment, it was disturbing how much I could "relate" to his way of thinking. I felt similarly after reading Albert Camus' the Stranger.
I could not get into The Stranger. Camus is one of my favorite authors but I much prefer his political essays to his fiction. I started The Stranger after reading Letters to a German Friend and it was too much of a departure in style at the time I think.