Literary genre of the plot: Thriller | New York, 1965
Main characters
Emily and Lia are two very sweet sisters in their eighties who run a small hotel in Queens. Very close-knit, they have great respect and care for all the guests, to the point that the hotel has a reputation for being the best in the neighborhood. Jack is a private investigator with no family, haunted by a past he would like to forget. He is a heavy drinker who accepts assignments of any kind.
The call to adventure
His latest assignment is given to him by an elderly father who has not heard from his 30-year-old daughter. Jack discovers that the missing girl was last seen near the Paradise Hotel, and from there her trail disappears. When it seems that the investigation is about to stall, Jack and his friend Ben, a retired policeman who occasionally helps him, discover that the Paradise Hotel was the last place where another missing person, a protagonist in another case, was also last sighted.
The conflict
Jack finds the coincidence between the two disappearances and the Paradise Hotel strange. The place, on the surface delightful, seems to be hiding nothing. Yet each time Jack investigates he ends up waking up on his bed at home completely dazed, as if after a sound hangover. With Ben's help he realizes that the disappearances that have occurred around the Paradise Hotel are many, and the reassuring image of his sisters suddenly becomes frightening.
The key
It is the disappearance of his colleague Ben that will once again drive Jack inside the Paradise Hotel to confront the two sisters. He will discover that satanic rites involving human sacrifice are taking place in the basement of the ancient building. But Jack will die a victim of Emily and Lia without being able to save the new patrons.
The alternatives
You can change much of this plot, not only the place and time, but also the characters and their connections. You can exploit a particular setting to make the narrative more powerful: in Paradise Hotel we have the mid-1960s with psychedelic music, Vietnam, student protests, Malcolm X. What period do you want to set your novel in?