The story of a crime, or Nathaniel Hawthorne and crime fiction

The House of the Seven Gables, Salem, Massachusetts

I visited a house Wednesday that lent its name to a novel. That novel:

• Portrays the slow ripple effect of a crime.
• Speaks with sympathy of a socially low character cheated out of his land by a socially prominent one.
• Is neither Scandinavian nor French.

The book appears to have had greater influence on "weird" or supernatural stories than on crime fiction, but its examination of a crime's after-effects ought to set crime writers and readers abuzz with possibilities.

What crime novels can you name that portray a crime's effects on those not directly involved with it,  years or even generations later?

© Peter Rozovsky 2013