User:Kelc019/Dead Mountaineer's Hotel

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Plot Summary
The novel begins when Inspector Peter Glebsky goes on a holiday to the Dead Mountaineer's Hotel, a small resort located in a secluded valley in the Alps, famous for its sensationalized haunted history. There, 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

Background
The Dead Mountaineer’s Inn is the 17th novel by Boris and Arkady Strugatsky. When the book was initially published, the Strugatsky’s had fallen from favor with Soviet publishers, and most of their work was being serialized in magazines, rather than published as books. The Dead Mountaineer’s Hotel, however, being for the most part free of political commentary, reached publication with only minor adjustments made by censors of the time. The first publication saw the novel’s gangsters transformed into Neo-fascists, and a 1983 edition saw several cuts and edits made in an effort to coordinate with an anti-alcoholism campaign.

The book was not as successful as some of the Strugatsky’s previous work, perhaps due to the authors’ intentionally loose handling of genre, melding a classic closed door murder mystery with a science-fiction story where aliens and robots are responsible for everything.

Publication History
The book was originally published in 1970 in Russian, under the title Отель «У Погибшего Альпиниста». 1982 saw the books first English publication, under the title The Dead Mountaineer’s Hotel. The book has also been published under the English title The Dead Mountaineer’s Inn. Other titles the book has been known by include Inspector Glebsky’s Puzzle, and, The Hotel of the Lost Climber.