Dead Mountaineer's Hotel
Boris Strugatsky
 The novel begins with Peter Glebsky, a policeman by profession, going on a holiday to the Dead Mountaineer's Hotel, a small resort located in a secluded valley in the Alps. He meets the other guests: Mr. Moses, a rich old man with highly eccenteric manners, and his stunningly beautiful wife; Mr. du Barnstocre, an illusionist who is accompanied by Brun, his niece (portrayed throughout the novel as an adolescent of unidentifiable sex); Mr. Simonet, the obsessed physicist; Mr. Hinckus, a custodial attorney; and Olaf Andvarafors. Not long after Mr. Glebsky's arrival, an avalanche blocks the entrance to the valley, thus cutting the protagonists off from outside world. At the same time, Olaf Andvarafors is found dead in his room, his door locked and his neck impossibly twisted. Glebsky is forced to start an investigation, but the more he searches for a logical explanation for the murder, the more he realises that the guests are not who they appear to be.