SUMMARY

The story is about a brave detective woman named V.I. Warshawski who is not interested in
having a family. Her life changed somehow when her cousin died in an accident by falling under
a ship, Vic was very fond of him and she doesnt understand how a strong young man can just
slip and fall into the water like that, she doesnt believe it either but she promised herself to find
out the truth.
Bernard was the real name of Vics cousin but everybody knew him as Boom Boom he was a
former ice-hockey star who used to play with the Black Hawks until he shattered his left
ankle,that is why he got a job at Eudora Grain Company which is a great lake shipping industry
After Boom Booms funeral Vic met a pretty young woman who said she was Boom Booms
girlfriend named PaigeCarrington, she was a dancer. When Vic found her in Boom Booms
apartment shuffling papers she started to suspect her.
The next day Vic met Eudoras vice-president Clayton Phillips, she wanted him to show her
where her cousin went in, but he could just said to her the same old thing, that is her cousin just
slipped and fell in. Later he led her to NielsGrafalk the ships owner, and she started to met
more important people as the chief engineer on the LucellaWieser (the ship where her
cousinfell) and Martin Bledsoe the owner of the Pole Star Line which included Lucella, when
those men started to talk she found some strange friction between them.
The other day when Vic return to Boom Booms apartment she found a mess and the watchman
was dead, the detective went after Paige to asked her some questions.
When things got more misterious Vic talked to Boom Booms secretary and got some important
documents about her cousins job.
The next day Vic went to Eudora Grain again but shecouldnt found out something new, there
Bledsoe invited her to dinner but when she returned to the company to picked her car up, she
had an owful accident, the car brakes failed and she woke up in an hospital, fortunately alive.
When she recovered, she went to the shore of Lake Michigan which is a very wealthy place. To
get information she made Phillips wife belive she was an interviewer, when she had finished
she went to see Grafalkshouse but she met him and she couldnt escape, so she pretended
she wasnt spying.
Then he invited her to get into his house, he seemed to know some things about Vics private
life, Grafalk told her Bledsoe secret, that he had spent 2 years in prision for stealing money from
the company.
All those information seemed very confusing but Vic didnt give up, she kept on looking for key
information.
At port Vic tried to talk to Bledsoe and one captain to found out who wanted to kill her, but she
didnt get the right answer, she just discovered Bledsoe was harmless somehow.
When they were going to board a ship suddenly it exploded, but then Vic recalled she had seen
a strange shadow getting off the ship.
With all those things coming around her, she realized there was a plot but still didnt know
exactly why. She realized Paige was a liar.
One night she discovered Boom Boom had left behind a picture of herself, one key piece of an
invoice from GrafalkSteampshine line, which showed that he was having problems with his
company.
The next day she had found the body of Phillips, he was clearly murdered, then she went to see
Phillips wife, Jeannine and in her house she discovered that Paige Carrington was her sister,
and all had been a complot to killed her cousin and tried to killed her too. She reproached
Jeannine for being such a selfish woman, all they have done was to get more money to aparent
something they were not. When Vic got out of there she went to Grafalks yacht because she
knew he was the most responsable for all that mess, he had killed Phillip to cover that his
company was not longer succesfull and had failed. Grafalk had stolen a lot of money to keep his
position and a lot of people had been involved in that corruption. Grafalk was the one who
ordered to modify Vics car to killed her. When Vic told Grafalk all she knew about it, he chased
her all around the yacht to kill her but she burned up the yacht and jumped out of it. Then in the
cold waters she got help while Grafalk killed himself getting into the burning flames.
After all, Vic had seen the death of her cousin killer, and all the matter had being resolved.
Although Paige (who had been Grafalks mistress) escaped, she and Claire Grafalk (Grafalks
wife who no longer loved her husband) finally got peace.

OPINION
We enjoyed the reading because we like detectives thrillers and it was great because we got in
that pages a heroine who is not the typical lady endangered that a man got to rescue, she is
independent and really brave she face her fears too. Our stage was in the 60s or mabe in 70s
but still can captive the readers attention. The novel has movement, it takes you from one
action to another, it takes you to solve a mystery to find another and at the end all the pieces fit
in. Finally the theme is not something new because greed and betrayal for the power have
always existed and are very common in police thriller, even so if you read it, it wont bored you.