Police inspector Peter Glebsky comes to spend his vacation at a small hotel “At the Dead Climber.” On the third day, guests wake up to the roar of an avalanche that has blocked the “Bottle Neck”—the only exit from the gorge. The phone doesn’t work; there’s no contact with the outside world. Soon a strange man starts knocking at the hotel door…
The novella was written by the Strugatsky brothers in 1969 and described by them as “yet another swan song for the detective genre.”