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The Hotel

From the bestselling author of To the Lake, adapted to Netflix series

Over 70,000 copies sold

A film crew murder mystery set in ice and snow.

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Author

Yana Vagner

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Format

Novel, 2017

542 pp

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Genre

Crime, mystery, thriller, drama

Title

The Hotel

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Aesthetics

Eerie, gripping, graphic, upturning, shocking, arresting

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References

Gone Girl, directed by David Fincher, 2014

Knives Out, directed by Rian Johnson, 2019

The Hateful Eight, directed by Quentin Tarantino, 2015

And Then There Were None, directed by Ren Clair, 1945

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Sales points

Bestselling author

Previous novel, To the Lake, adapted to Netflix series

Full French translation available

Pitch

A fi lm crew retreats to a remote ski resort, only for the lead actress to be murdered on the fi rst night. Trapped by an ice storm with no way out, the group must investigate the crime—uncovering dark secrets and realizing one of them is the killer.

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Synopsis

A film crew arrives at a mountain ski resort for a shoot. The producer rents a secluded hotel atop the mountain a week before the shoot for a friendly getaway. On the first night of their vacation, the lead actress is brutally murdered - pierced twice with a ski pole and pushed over the parapet, down to the rocks, left to die under a falling ice storm.


By morning, the group discovers the cableway (their only link to the outside world) is covered in ice and de-energized, the transmitter is destroyed, and there’s no mobile signal. A frozen body is found on a rocky slope, just meters from the ski path. 


There are nine of them - eight lifelong friends and a morose, somewhat sinister hotel manager - and one of them is the killer. Cut off from the world, they take matters into their own hands and begin investigating. No one has an alibi, each has a confession to make, and each might have wanted Sonya, the film’s star, dead. For years, Sonya - a brilliant manipulator, a gifted actress - ruthlessly exploited and controlled her friends, feeding off their love and despair. 


The friends must confront harsh truths, face the dark secrets of their past, and break free from the ice-cold shell of their lifelong illusions.

About the author

Yana Vagner was born in Moscow in 1973 into a bilingual family. Her Czech mother came to Moscow in the 60s to study Russian language and literature.


Yana graduated from Moscow State University with a major in management and has worked as an interpreter, an anchorperson on radio, and a logistics manager, which allowed her to travel extensively throughout Africa, Europe and Latin America.


She started writing To the Lake as a weekly blog while a flu epidemic swept through Moscow. It has since become a bestselling novel, translated into multiple languages and adapted into a Netflix series. Yana has written four novels to date, her latest novel The Tunnel currently being adapted to film.



© 2024 by Banke, Goumen & Smirnova

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