Dead Mountaineer's Hotel

Dead Mountaineer's Hotel (Russian: Отель "У Погибшего Альпиниста", Transliteration: Otel "U Pogibshego Al'pinista") is a 1970 science fiction detective novel written by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky. It is known as Inspector Glebsky's Puzzle in the English translation, published in 1988 by Richardson, Steirman & Black.

Plot summary

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.

Adaptations

The story has been adapted into the Soviet Estonian film "Hukkunud Alpinisti" hotell by Grigori Kromanov at Tallinnfilm in 1979.

The story has been used in a video game also known as Dead Mountaineer's Hotel by the Russian software company Akella.
It was to be released for North America and Western Europe by the now defunct publisher Lighthouse Interactive. On the 28th October 2011 an English-language version of the game was made available on online games store Steam (software).