The Hotel


Author
Yana Vagner

Format
Novel, 2017
542 pp

Genre
Crime, mystery, thriller, drama
Title
The Hotel

Aesthetics
Eerie, gripping, graphic, upturning, shocking, arresting

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

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.

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.