DEADLOCK

Unlike Emma Lathen, Paretsky (Indemnity Only) doesn't quite have the gift for making convoluted business dealings lucid and lively; so this second outing for V. I. Warshawski, a female narrator/shamus in Chicago, is again more sturdy than gripping—with V. I. somewhat less agreeable company than she was in her debut. "Boom Boom" Warshawski, ex-hockey star and a recent employee at the Eudora Grain Co., has died in an "accident" on the Chicago waterfront, falling (?) off a pier. So his cousin V. I., suspecting foul play, is soon sleuthing around Eudora—and around the shipping companies it deals with. Had Boom Boom discovered some shady dealings involving a grain-company exec? Was a slimy shipping tycoon also involved? And what about local ballet-star Paige Carrington, who claims to have been Boom Boom's true love . . . but seems to have a sugar daddy elsewhere? More murders ensue: the security guard at Boom Boom's condo (apparently the victim of burglars in pursuit of incriminating papers); the top grain-company suspect. Then someone drains the brake fluid out of V.I.'s car. But, undaunted, she follows the the trail (a rather arbitrary one) to a Canadian port city, boarding a freight-ship just in time to survive a mid-lock explosion. And finally there's a long-drawn-out series of confrontations—one of them featuring more shipboard violence—between V.I. and each of the several, transparent villains. Just-passable corporate sleuthing overall—with okay shipping backgrounds, stiff dialogue, and the unengaging presence (sarcastic, weepy) of V. I. herself.